Free
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: As a child, Princess Lily of Ravenclaw was kidnapped and locked in an enchanted tower at the behest of her jealous older sister. In Gryffindor, Prince James's family was usurped by Severus Snape of Slytherin, who tasks him with a dangerous quest in return for his mother's life - rescue the long-entrapped princess from her tower, and present her to Snape as his new bride.
1. One

**Author's Note:** This fic is dedicated to the beautiful Cara who brightens my life in so many ways. Darling heart, I love you dearly.

Before reading, please note that this fic is packed to the brim with the corniest, floweriest, most ridiculously starlit romance tropes I could muster, because why bother to write a fairy-tale if you're not going to go full dark no stars? It's a bit Beauty and the Beast, a bit Shrek, a lot Jily, and I'm having an absolute riot packing it with fluff and banter. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

I did a little world-building for this fic, which can be found on my Tumblr sideblog, which this site won't allow me to link to with HTML but the username is ghostofbambifanfiction. Any other information or backstory will also be posted there.

Finally, I need to give a special shout-out to my friend Ana, who wouldn't fucking stop going on about donkeys until I agreed to make her a donkey in this story. So now she's a donkey. Ana the donkey.

 **Chapter One**

 _Once upon a time..._

Think of a girl with moonlight on her face, softly slipping through the trees on a warm summer night, a summer of firsts, long, lonely days and hours spent sleepless in the thick, black dark, a summer of loss incomparable, of voices that murmur 'no good' behind curtains, of a mother who looks without seeing, of a father who sighs and shudders and stills, of a sister, tall and grave and no longer a sister at all, but a queen.

A very little girl with skin like cream, emerald eyes and hair like molten fire, she seeks comfort in sky and sunshine, in the branches of trees, in the trickle of streams and the whispers she hears beneath fat, coloured toadstools. Watch her bare feet skim over pebbles, pass unscathed through jagged paths and muddy puddles. Watch the flowers that open and close in the palm of her hand, and the water that bends to comply with her wishes. Listen to the rain beat tremulous rhythms at her will. See the sudden summer snow in one westernmost corner.

Watch her be watched by a pair of cold eyes. Listen to a heartbeat slow until it's frozen by hatred. See the colour of envy, greener than a little girl's eyes. The scratch of a quill. Coins exchanged in some dark, onerous place. A burst of flame, and a crash, a scream in the night, child's scream, girl's scream, a very little girl with no puddles left to skip through. The toadstools will cease to whisper and the branches will creak in the winter wind, waiting for a footfall that never returns. They stole the summer from her now.

Think of a girl in a room with no windows, consigned only to memory now. Waiting. Hoping. Hopeless. Lost.

One year. Two years. Three years. Ten.

Think of her.

* * *

 _Ten years later..._

King Fleamont falls as if time has been dragged through quicksand, a languid, silent sweep, but hits the ground at sudden speed, one hand clasped to his neck, a gleaming, sticky stream of blood seeping through his clenched fingers, and his son screams - a soundless, strangled thing - and then there's searing pain, and darkness.

He wakes to everything different. Father dead. Mother dying. Peter dead. His friends abandoned in a dungeon. He wakes to green hangings that adorn the castle walls, wands snapped in half, and his legs in shackles, and a hook-nosed, cretinous beast who calls himself the king. And _pain._ Not the ringing in his head, a delicate lump that stings when prodded, but the ache in his heart, raw and constant, something that pounds on his bones and tears at his sinew and begs him to thrash and scream, but his body can't find the strength to comply.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this, and he can't think how it did. Everything had been so carefully planned - the alliance, the deal, the banquet and the ball - and someone must have helped, but _who?_ He cannot think. He cannot fathom. He should have known, or guessed, or suspected, but Mother had been ill. Mother would have known, because she knew everything, but she had been so fragile, for weeks on end, distracting Father. Distracting him. Leaving them exposed and vulnerable. She hasn't yet recovered. He thinks she never will.

It had been his birthday, he vaguely recalls, the day they cut his father's throat.

Nineteen and orphaned. Almost.

* * *

"The king wants to see you later," said Crabbe, and smacked him round the back of the head.

They liked doing that, the guards.

Clearly, they were jealous of his hair, James had suggested a few weeks back, a jibe designed to anger the big, ugly bald one - he hadn't found it necessary to learn each and every name - which earned him another whack. That had hurt like hell, but his mother had smiled when he recounted the story, and told him she was glad to see his sense of humour intact, so the pain had been worth it, in the end. Euphemia had precious little reason to smile, and he was her only child, so he had to do his best to keep her spirited.

His head hurt often these days. He'd sustained quite the lump to his noggin during the takeover, and Snape's guards seemed utterly determined that it not go away. That was hard enough to take as it was, but harder still to take on his knees, a position he was forced to assume whenever the guards called upon the one-room shack they now called home, where he was kept imprisoned by nothing but devotion. Snape may have been a vile, evil prick, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that James would never run, not when his mother was incapable of walking.

If he'd had his wand. _If._

But his father had been adamant that they conduct the banquet in peace, surrendering wands and weapons at the doors. That had been the last James saw of Peter, when he handed his wand to his manservant and bade him to take it to his room, and Peter scurried off, dutiful to a fault, as always, and doomed to die in minutes. James had been dragged to the throne room the next day, and forced to watch while Snape snapped his wand in half. It hadn't felt like it mattered at the time - his father had been killed, and that was everything, the _only_ thing, swallowing every other thing whole like an ever-expanding abyss - but two months on, it smarted.

"When am I needed?" he said, not of a mind to cheek Crabbe in front of his mother. He would have, if she'd been sleeping, but she grew so upset when she saw him hurt, and Crabbe was the most heavy-handed of all Snape's men.

"The king is taking his breakfast," Crabbe continued, moving to the paltry door. "He expects you in three-quarters of an hour."

He left then, slamming it shut behind him with a force that almost took it off his hinges, though a light breeze may have had the same effect, and Euphemia pulled her blanket closer to her chin.

"He's an awfully unattractive character," she remarked, with the kind of snap that would have made a man believe she wasn't a woman confined to a sickbed. "No wonder he's so brutish with you."

James jumped up from his knees. "You think?"

"Oh, I know so. Even in these peasant rags, you're so very handsome, and he looks like—"

"A troll?"

"I was going to say a boulder, but both are fairly misshapen." His mother patted the bed beside her. "Let me see your head."

"Head's fine."

"I didn't ask how it was doing, I asked to see it and form my own, correct opinion."

"Mum—"

"Don't make me crawl from this bed and spank you, boy."

She looked so determined that he almost thought she'd do it - regal, still, in a dowdy brown shift and her hair in tatters around her face - so he slouched over to her bed and perched beside her. Her hands moved immediately to the back of his head, where she parted his hair and sucked in an angry breath.

"Only a small cut, this time," she told him. "The way they hit you with those armoured fists—"

"I barely feel it."

"—when I'm fully recovered and get my hands on a wand—"

Were it possible, had James not considered and abandoned every single avenue across multiple nights spent staring at a cracked fireplace, wincing every time his sleeping mother groaned in pain, were Euphemia's legs not riddled with a mystifying hex that sent ugly black veins crisscrossing through her skin, a virus which spread further and further with each passing day, Snape's guards would have been wise if they chose to run screaming. Queen Euphemia was the most powerful witch that the kingdom of Gryffindor had seen in centuries.

Or at least, she had been. When she had been whole. When she'd had a wand. When she had been a queen, and her son a prince.

"Maybe I'll swipe one in the castle," he joked. "He can't have snapped them all."

His mother moved one hand to cup his cheek. "What do you think you're needed for?"

"Perhaps he's uncovered more gold to loot."

"That odious little snake."

"Unless he's finally found a way around the enchantments," said James thoughtfully. "And puts me out of my misery, finally."

Gryffindor had sat beneath the rule of House Potter for twelve generations, and the enchantments protecting the castle's walls and secrets were numerous. Only a Potter, or the spouse of one, could pass through certain doors, unlock vaults, reveal its hidden passages, move treasures from its stores without suffering grievous wounds. Snape had tried to circumvent it with a vial of King Fleamont's blood, but to no avail. A living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Potter, with a still-beating heart, was all the castle would accept.

So while Snape and his men struggled to break through the enchantments, they were keeping James alive, and while his mother languished beneath a hex that only Snape could lift or worsen, he was keeping James compliant.

"James." His mother's lips formed a hard line, with a flash of something painful in her lovely, hazel eyes. "Don't ever joke about that."

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I won't again."

He wished he had been joking.

* * *

Lord Corner made for the twenty-seventh failed attempt.

That seemed like rather a lot, as far as failed attempts went, but twenty-seven men across one solitary decade was quite a pitiful number, averaging at just under three a year, and nineteen of the lot had only shown up in the last two. An entrapped princess was less desirable, perhaps, before she came of age, when she could be a gasping, guileless virgin with the keys to a kingdom slipped between her quivering thighs.

Lily would have been a disappointment to all of them. She never gasped, she wasn't stupid, and she'd seen their faces when they ventured to her room and found her slumped on the floor with her chin on her chest, a book balanced against her (very sturdy) thighs, spitting apple pips across the floor. They seemed to expect to find her in a state of silken delicacy, embroidering a cushion, perhaps, or perched dramatically on the chaise lounge. Her room wasn't much, but it did, at least, boast some exquisite furnishings.

Mary hated when she spat pips, but Mary also allowed her some leeway when it came to her bad habits. Lily wasn't allowed to have _windows_ , the least she could do was fashion projectiles from fruits.

The noble Lord Corner, the latest in a line of 'valiant knights' selected by Petunia to ride to her rescue, was particularly stupid, though his livery was ever so fine and well-maintained. Her sister must have laughed herself sick when he volunteered himself for the task, as if it wasn't clear as day that the queen would _never_ send a man with the barest hint of a chance. Every one of them was stupid, really. They would blink when they found her, encased in a room with a wide-open door, entreating her to follow as if she were a skittish lamb, ignoring what she felt were plain-spoken statements like, "I physically can't leave," or, "no, I'm bound here by magic," or "seriously, you're going to die."

She didn't know how many assassins Petunia was wont to send, or how many exiles she'd hired to keep an eye on the castle, but they all died shortly after leaving, all twenty-six of them that came before the latest, one by unfortunate one. Mary, the only living creature permitted to come and go unharmed, reported on the bodies she'd found in the grounds of the castle, all in varying states of gory dismemberment. Some of them delayed their deaths by sticking around for an inordinately long time, refusing to accept that Lily could not leave. Sometimes, it was funny. Sometimes, the man was sweet, and Lily would feel bad for a spell when he left. Sometimes, she really didn't care.

It was getting harder and harder to care.

Corner had been one of the lingering ilk. He'd tried to pick her up and carry her out - they always mistook her small frame for weakness - and she'd become too weary of his company to resist. He'd been so shocked to find himself thrown back by an invisible force, allowed to leave the room only when he relinquished his hold on her, but Lily had merely rolled her eyes, and returned to her book.

"I told you," she'd said. "Don't get murdered on your way out."

She imagined that he'd last for a good ten minutes.

* * *

There were wands aplenty, and spell books, and his Invisibility Cloak, as well as a collection of magically-imbibed weapons, in the secret chamber that abutted his late father's study, but James couldn't get there without giving the guards the slip, and as he found himself chained between two whenever he drew near the castle grounds, that wasn't a viable option. Gryffindors weren't like the Ravenclaws of old, who were said to part rivers and fell trees with nothing but the flick of a finger, though that magic had long since ceased to exist. A Gryffindor needed his wand, or his magic had no proper channel.

Alternatively, James was almost as adept a swordsman as he was a wizard, but quite unlikely to find a rapier within his grasp.

Nor, on pain of death, would he let one Slytherin know of the room itself. He'd only be forced to open it, then watch as another collection of his family's treasures were ransacked beyond belief. The gold and jewels, he didn't mind losing. The wands were their only hope of salvation, and he'd take their location to his grave before he surrendered them to Snape.

The posturing, would-be king was reposing in the lounge – James's mother's _private_ lounge, that had done nothing to deserve the touch of that monster's blood-leaden hands on the plump, scarlet cushions she had loved so much – when James was dragged in by the guards, examining his reflection in the back of a goblet. Obscene wealth did not become him, for he still had not learned how to wash his long, stringy, grease-soaked hair.

"Hark," said Snape, his beady eyes lighting with their usual, pathetic glee as James was brought before him. "If it isn't my old friend, the former crown prince of Gryffindor."

"Morning, Snivelly," said James, and a guard – Rosier, he thought – smacked the back of his legs with his longsword and sent him to his knees, which was fine, because they would have forced him down anyway. Snape went through this arduous process almost every day, apparently finding no end of joy in taunting his foe for having been stripped of his title. His guards were merely saving James from a long and boring victory speech.

"That's no way to talk to your king, Potter."

"Don't see my king here, Snivellus."

That was sure to earn him a beating, but to his surprise, Snape shook his head at Rosier when he stepped forward with his arm raised, his eyes moving back to find James's face, those ugly features of his twisted with revulsion.

"I don't have time to play games today," he told him. "I have a job I want you to do."

"It's not polishing the goblets, is it? Because that won't improve your reflection any."

"Speak to me like that again, and I'll have that werewolf friend of yours cut open from neck to groin," threatened Snape, his lip curling in a snarl. "The Wolfsbane Potion works quite well on his kind, of course, but imagine the advances we could make if we only had a beast upon which we could experiment."

James wanted, so badly, to throw back a retort – beast, indeed, as if there was a fouler beast than Snape himself – but _Remus._ Remus. He swallowed his anger, and his words, and tried to ignore the satisfied smile on Snape's loathsome face.

"Good," said his nemesis, and set down the goblet. "You've heard, I believe, of the lost princess of Ravenclaw?"

This abrupt change of subject threw him a little. Of course, he'd heard of the lost princess. Everyone had. The story of Princess Lily's abduction from the Ravenclaw palace, and the frantic efforts of Queen Petunia to find and bring her home, had become the stuff of legend since the halcyon days of James's childhood. To ask if James, a Gryffindor royal by blood, had _heard_ of the girl, was an utterly stupid question, which Snape doubtless knew, but he didn't trust his mouth to behave when the anger he felt was so fresh in his veins still, so he nodded.

"Never met her, have you?" said Snape.

He recalled his father offering, when he was a wee chap of eight, but he'd been uninterested in venturing so far away from Sirius, and so the king had undertaken the journey alone. "No."

"I have," Snape continued, looking not at James now, but at a spot past his shoulder, his eyes growing soft and lurid with the recollection. "Many times, in my childhood. She was a remarkable girl, Lily was, even then. My father was in the process of brokering our engagement when she was taken. As you can imagine, I was devastated by the loss."

James wondered, for a moment, that Snape was taking the piss – but no, that was _real_ emotion in his eyes, real longing in his voice as it lingered over her name, softer than a caress, utterly stomach-turning.

For the love of Merlin, the prat was _in love_ with some girl he'd known a decade ago.

How pathetic. How utterly creepy.

The poor thing, he thought unbidden, if the alternative to being kidnapped was a life as Snape's bride, and perhaps Snape could tell what he was thinking, because he searched James's face with expectant eyes, obviously waiting for a disparaging remark, before he carried on with his story.

"She resides, now, in an abandoned castle in the Burned Lands, closer to Ravenclaw than here, quite heavily guarded, so I'm told, and about a fortnight's journey on foot, as you'll see from this map," he said, pulling a bound-up scroll from the folds of his robes and tossing it to James, where it landed several inches from his knees. "And you'll need to go on foot. Her sister insists that only a Ravenclaw may find her, lest a noble from any other kingdom try to use her title to stage a coup—"

 _"What?"_ said James sharply, so sharply, in fact, that Rosier almost drew his sword again. "What do you mean, go on foot?"

"I mean, we can't send an armed and mounted guard to fetch her," Snape continued, with a roll of his eyes. "Are you truly as slow as you look, Potter? Queen Petunia will have no choice but to approve the marriage once her sister is safely ensconced _here_ , in the castle, but until then, she mustn't know that I'm attempting to find her. As a lone traveller, you will—"

"Are you mental?"

Snape's eyes flashed in anger. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not travelling to Merlin-knows-where in the Burned Lands to rescue some bloody princess—"

"You'll do as your told, Potter, or you'll find your pointless existence cut short—"

"So kill me, then," James countered. "And stop delaying the inevitable, but my place is with my mother until that moment, not poking through a crumbling old castle for the sake of your—"

"Goyle!" Snape commanded, and snapped his fingers. "Bring in the girl."

One of the guards holding James grunted at his master's order, dropped the chain connected to his captive's left wrist and departed the room, his footfall enormously heavy, even muffled by the plush, ruby carpet.

"Funny you should mention your mother," said Snape pleasantly. "I've got something that may change your mind."

Snape must have prepared for James's refusal, because Goyle returned immediately, dragging with him a tall, slender, brown-haired girl whom James knew from the kitchens, where often he had gone in search of snacks. Snape had killed many of his father's men and imprisoned many more – Remus and Sirius included – but had kept most of the household staff in his employ, once he'd deprived those with magic of their wands. Beatrice had been one of those with powers. She had been quick and sharp, ever ready with a witty remark, and cheerful, always cheerful.

She was utterly miserable now, one hand wrapped in a thick bandage, her eyes fixed determinedly upon her feet.

"You remember this young lady, I assume," said Snape. "She and I have spent a little time together of late – perhaps she could show our prince-turned-pauper what we've been working on."

With her lips pressed together, Beatrice unravelled the bandage from around her hand, which was oddly limp, tears building in her eyes now, wincing in pain when her fingers brushed against flesh, round and round until the bandage fell away, revealing a sight worse than foul, a sight James knew very well.

Veins. Hundreds of them. Black as night. Crisscrossed through her skin. Red, swollen, bulging flesh. The visceral memory of a putrid, rotting scent.

His stomach turned over.

"As you can see, she and your mother have something in common," Snape continued, his eyes lingering on her lifeless hand, savouring the sight of the work he had done. "A tricky little curse, that one, immensely slow to act, but deadly, once it touches the heart."

He made a movement, as if to jump to his feet, and Rosier yanked on the chain to bring him back to his knees. "You—"

"Observe," said Snape, and pulled a vial of some bright, green liquid from his robes.

Goyle grabbed Beatrice from behind, one hand grasping her pointed chin to force her lips apart, the other pulling her hair to tip back her head, and Snape was advancing, and she was screaming, struggling to escape, and James felt himself stumbling violently backwards - he must have tried to rush to her aid - and a smirking Snape tipped the contents of the vial directly down her throat.

For a moment, she stopped moving entirely, stiller than a corpse, and then her hand...

Her hand was _fine._

"As I said, it's a tricky little curse," said Snape, while Beatrice staggered back, gaping at her brown, unblemished hand, her tears escaping in great, heaving gasps. "But easily cured, as you've seen. I'm willing to do the same for your mother, should you be willing to get me what I want."

It was everything James wanted, hoped for, wished for when he felt like wishing was fruitless, but there had to be a catch. A trap, somewhere, cleverly disguised as a sweeter prospect.

"You'd be willing to spare my mother," he said, weighing his words carefully. _"My_ mother, the most powerful witch that Gryffindor has ever seen, for some girl—"

"The princess," said Snape coldly. "Is _not_ some girl, but an exceedingly gifted young woman, and my rightful bride. _Your_ mother is useless without a wand, which she won't get, but bring Princess Lily back to me and I'll give you her life, and yours, which you can share forever in some godforsaken shack far away from here, for all I care."

James shook his head. "I don't believe you."

"That's of no consequence to me, I can find someone else to rescue the princess, though goodness knows, there isn't a more expendable man in the kingdom."

"I wish you luck finding him."

"Though it seems selfish, of course - refusing me, when it spells certain death for your mother."

The bastard. He was worse than evil. Unspeakable.

And right, besides. Wise to James's weakness. Certain that he would never run, while his mother was incapable of walking. Sure that James would never forgive himself, had he found a chance to save his mother, and flagrantly ignored it.

"I'll need a sword," he said, after a moment.

Snape laughed, high and bitter. "You think I was born yesterday."

"Then woe betide your princess if we're set upon by bandits," he countered. "I can hardly protect her unarmed."

Snape chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes flitting around the room, landing on one guard and then the other, but when he spoke again, it was with grim resignation.

"Fine," he said. "You will be escorted, by an armed procession, to a secure location, five miles outside the city gates, and given a sword—"

"A Gryffindor-forged sword?"

"—a sword of ordinary properties, as well as food and water enough to last you the journey."

"You're certain of that, are you?"

"As much as I would cherish an opportunity to watch you die, the safety of my future bride takes precedence."

"And my mother?"

"The kitchen girl has proven her worth," said Snape, nodding almost aimlessly at a still crying Beatrice. "She will care for your mother in your absence—"

"I'll know if my mother dies—"

"I'm quite aware of blood magic—"

"And if she does," said James warningly. "I'll find your bloody princess, and take her right back to her sister in Ravenclaw, as well as a full report of what you've been up to."

"You have my word that your mother's condition will not worsen in your absence."

"Your word's not worth much to me."

"Maybe not," Snape retorted. "But it's all you've got."

It meant nothing, truly. Less than nothing. The word of a snake. The promise of a betrayer. The assurance of a man who schemed and lied, and dealt in dirt and darkness.

But his mother. His mother. His _mother._

He nodded.

* * *

Mary found her, some days after Lord Corner's visit, balanced precariously on her writing desk, with one bare foot held aloft behind her back.

"Again?" she sighed, with a baleful glance at an overturned stool that lay forlorn on the rug which, much like Lily's bedding and the hangings on the walls, were intricately embroidered in the Ravenclaw colours of blue and bronze. "I try so hard to keep this chamber tidy."

"Why? I'm not expecting company."

"You _had_ company, three moons ago, I do believe."

"And what state did you find that company in, pray tell?"

"Sadly mangled."

"What a shame," said Lily tonelessly, and moved, leaping from the desk to the ottoman in one swift, graceful arch, landing again on one foot. "Man or beast?"

"Trolls, I think."

"And he had _such_ a pretty face."

Mary clucked her tongue and flew, her wings beating like a hummingbird, swooping to right the fallen stool. "I wish you wouldn't talk so about your would-be rescuers—"

Lily took a breath to steady her impatience, and hopped down from the ottoman.

"—and I _wish_ you wouldn't skulk about in your nightshirt. When did you last bathe?"

She pondered this question for a moment, then shrugged. "Maybe when that lord was here?"

"Lily!"

"I got distracted by a book!"

"And by leaping childishly about the room like a toad, so it seems," said Mary sternly. "One of these days, when _he_ arrives—"

"Oh, he indeed."

"—wouldn't you rather you looked presentable?"

"I'd rather I was able to hold my own against what lurks out there, should _he_ ever arrive, which he won't," said Lily dryly. "Hence, the leaping. And anyway, if such a man exists, surely he's bound to find me delightful, even if I am unwashed and generally mangy?"

"Men aren't as sensitive to these things as we are."

"Then there's surely no point to any of them," said Lily, and dropped onto her bed.

Mary snapped her fingers, and in an instant, Lily found her long, tangled hair clean, shining, and gathered in a single, heavy braid that hung over one shoulder, and her body laced in a royal blue and ivory white gown befitting a Ravenclaw princess, one of many that Petunia found it prudent for her to own in her exile.

This was one of Mary's moves, and it was particularly cunning, because Lily's bodices were the tricky kind that she couldn't unlace herself, but being magically cleaned and dressed saved on the time it took to fill her tub and wash her hair. It was less of a punishment than the fairy supposed, though still an annoyance, all the same.

"My sister, Cara—" Mary began.

"Not this again."

 _"Lily,"_ said Mary warningly. "Be respectful, please."

She wanted to retort, but it wasn't the fault of Mary that fairies were so annoyingly optimistic, none more so than their high queen, Cara, the fairy of tulips. Hope and laughter ran through their veins where other creatures would have blood.

So she buttoned her lip and assumed an air of contrition. "Sorry."

"She consulted with the centaurs of the Hufflepuff forests, and they believe your time is coming," Mary continued. "Cara herself has heard whispers from the flowers—"

"They've been whispering for quite some time."

"But never so much," said Mary kindly. "And never have the centaurs lent their assurances before. This is _good_ news, princess."

Lily lifted her skirt and started to count the number of underskirts and petticoats that Mary had foisted upon her this time. "That's nice."

"It's better than nice, Lily."

"It's your way of making me bathe and brush my hair," said Lily sweetly. "Or your sister's right, and my soulmate's on his merry way to get me, but either way I've run out of apples. Did you bring any?"

Mary looked as if she wanted to speak further, but perhaps thought better of it, for her shoulders dropped and she let out a weighty sigh.

"Yes," she said, and turned in mid-air to glide towards the open door. "Apples and sweet plums, beef and vegetables for soup. I'll fetch them and make you some supper."

She flew out the door and vanished to the right, and Lily fell back amongst her pillows.

All curses could be broken - it was in their nature, Lily had learned in her endless nights of research - and though it must have enraged Petunia no end to know that her sister's captivity could never be entirely certain, she'd certainly chosen the worst of the lot from the warlocks she'd brought into her employ, for where could a girl find her soulmate, one man in a world of millions, in a room with no windows, and how could that soulmate find her, when Petunia was in charge of the choosing?

Her elder sister was wily, Lily would give her that. Fraught was the face Petunia had chosen to present to the world, so she had learned from the men who came to save her. They spoke of the plentiful tears of her sister, the grieving queen, who had been mourning the loss of her parents when a then nine-year-old Lily was so cruelly abducted from her bed, stolen away by angry exiles of the Burned Lands.

Her sister, who had arranged it all herself, no doubt believing she had shown Lily kindness by allowing her to live, one lonely prisoner in an elegant cell, unable to leave until, unless, she was lead out by the hand of her soulmate. Petunia had neglected to share that part with her valiant knights. All had believed that they only need find her, and to them would go the spoils.

So there Lily was. Stuck. Locked in a room with a magic bookcase and a trunk full of gowns, waiting for the whispers of tulips to prove themselves anything more than whispers, for the arrival of an impossible, nonexistent _him_.

Her soulmate. Her true love. Some handsome, curse-breaking hero.

As if.


	2. Two

**Chapter Two**

The cat had been following him for hours.

James couldn't recall happening upon a cat, but he'd set up camp for the night beneath a tree and when he woke up in the morning, there it was, sitting next to his head, watching him sleep with the placid, mildly curious gaze of a seasoned killer considering its prey.

It must have been a tomcat, because it was huge; a fat, fluffy ginger beast with bright green eyes and a grumpy face, and also rather intimidating up close. James had never seen one like it. The cats that ratted in the castle grounds had been slender, flighty creatures who ran when startled, but James got the distinct impression that this one would be difficult to frighten. It - or he - merely stared at him, undaunted when shooed away, and followed when James resumed walking, moving remarkably fast for such a plump animal, his head tilted proudly into the air.

When he stopped again, to relieve himself in a bush - that would have made Sirius laugh, the crown prince of Gryffindor, dressed in rags and pissing on leaves - the cat did the same, pausing near a rock to expel his bodily waste, as if they'd made some sort of pact to go together. It was one of the stranger experiences of James's life, made even stranger when he sat down on a log to eat something from the paltry supplies Snape had provided, and the cat came to perch at his feet, with an expectant expression that seemed to suggest his belief that he was now to be fed.

"I don't have food for you," he told the cat, digging through his roughly woven bag for something that didn't taste brittle or sharp. "Go away."

He had been sent on his way with a large supply of dried salt beef and stale bread, as well as water enough to see him through the small number of dry, abandoned expanses that lay between the capital and the Burned Lands, dead remnants of what once had been prosperous farmland, before the blight had hit when James was a boy of six. Thirteen years on, Gryffindor couldn't produce enough wheat, barley, fruits or vegetables to sustain the capital, let alone the entire kingdom, and housed its fortunes in weaponry, relying on Hufflepuff to feed its people.

The Slytherin king, boasting of miraculous advancements in potioneering, had sworn to hold the solution to Gryffindor's agricultural woes, but it had all been a smokescreen, and two months on, nothing had been done - as far as James could see - to return the barren lands to their former glory. A lie, just like every other word that fell from his lips.

He'd been trying not to focus on the possibility that he was being lied to still, so the cat, at least, was some sort of distraction. He edged closer still to James, inscrutable eyes fixed solidly on his face.

"I'm serious," James continued. "I've barely got enough for myself, never mind the bloody princess, and I don't know how to hunt."

The cat tilted his head sideways, and looked at James with undisguised disdain, as if he was wise to his bullshit.

"Well, fine, maybe I _do_ know how to hunt, but I need a bow, or a wand, and all I got was this bleeding sword," he said, indicating to the old, rusting longsword he'd removed from his back and slung down on the ground beside him. "Some bloody husband she's getting - rules two kingdoms and can't be bothered to spring for a decent weapon to protect her with."

He raised a strip of beef to his lips and tore at a chunk with his teeth, thankfully not breaking any on the toughened meat, and cat simply continued to stare.

"I don't know what your game is—"

His gaze remained unbroken.

"Stop staring at me!"

The cat didn't balk.

"Oh, bloody hell!" he cried, swallowing the tasteless morsel, and climbed to his feet. _"Fine!"_

Later, as he slumped against a boulder, shivering and soaked to the thighs, with a two-inch gash on his arm and the fat trout he'd caught in the river cooking merrily above an open fire, James scratched the cat behind his ear and wondered if he was slowly going mad.

* * *

The flowers were _whispering._

Or, alternatively, James really was losing his mind.

Contrary to their name, the Burned Lands were in far better condition than half of rural Gryffindor, with acres of lush greenery, tall, sturdy trees, countless streams of crystal-clear water that bubbled cheerful melodies, and many vibrant bursts of colourful flowers. Any person who hadn't seen it with their own eyes might not have believed it possible, for the children of Hogwarts were raised on tales of an endless night, charred earth and dark hovels, and evil sorts who lurked in shadows to prey on their fellow men.

The Burned Lands were dangerous, but ugly they were not. Nor had they been burned for hundreds of years, not since the downfall of Salazar, where the would-be conqueror of Hogwarts met Godric Gryffindor and his army at the halfway point between their lands. Long had been the battle, and Slytherin put up a vicious fight, but his men were no match for the enchanted weapons and impenetrable armour of the Gryffindor soldiers.

In the end, so much blood was spilled that the river ran scarlet for days, while the once fruitful land found itself scorched and blackened, suffering the damage of a thousand different fires.

Since the days of Gryffindor's victory, the battle ground and its surrounding lands, for miles on every side, had played home to the exiles of all four kingdoms, and could not claim to belong to all or any. King Godric himself had enchanted its borders, and fashioned four branding irons with his very own wand, each bearing the emblem of its home. Any criminal, once tried and convicted by the Council of Four and branded with the four marks of an exile, would be taken to the Burned Lands in chains and released to do as they pleased, but never could they place one foot back across the border. They would find themselves repelled by magic, had they tried.

Over time, the exiles formed towns and communities of their own, and to its forests and rivers were drawn a host of magical beings and beasts who preferred the peace and quiet of a sparsely populated land. The people of the Burned Lands were poor - often relying on charity from the good folk of Hufflepuff - and any noble travelling by himself would often have cause to fear, but James had been thoroughly stripped of all wealth. With his tattered clothes and rusted sword, he did not present a desirable target to highwaymen and thieves, and the people he passed on his travels seemed content to let him go about his business.

But the flowers seemed intensely interested.

At first, he thought it might have been the cat making noises, having come to accept that his unwanted companion was no ordinary feline, but a creature in possession of some otherworldly gifts. However, his ornery, ginger stalker was a silent sort of scary.

He had been following James for three days with an unnerving determination, unmoved by threats, unblinking in the face of sudden movements, unwilling to be swayed by pleading or commands. James had tried throwing food to make the cat follow, doused him with water to make him angry, and even given him the slip, skulking away the previous morning while the cat still snoozed, but he'd woken up immediately and caught up with him in seconds, outraged to have been left behind, if the scratch on James's leg was any indication.

After that, he'd given up trying. He had a cat now, he supposed, and there was some irony to be found in the whole affair, because he'd wanted one desperately, once upon a time, when he'd been happy, and secure, and had room in his heart to care about anything.

The whispering was getting on his nerves.

They'd crossed the border to the Burned Lands the previous evening, and the whispering had been present ever since, fainter than the footsteps of a mouse at first, but growing louder as they trekked further into the woods, building to a constant, excitable buzz that made his head ache, and the cat swat angrily at flies that weren't there. It had taken him some time to figure out the source - Gryffindor wasn't known for its enchanted forests, so this was new territory for James - but he heard it in the foxgloves that stood guard among the trees, in the daisies he failed to crunch beneath his feet, saw the bluebells nod their merry little heads. The flowers were whispering. To him. At him.

 _About_ him.

Or he was going mad.

"I _could_ be losing the plot," he suggested aloud, having halted between two alder trees to consult his map, an impossibly long sheet of parchment that Snape had surely foisted on him to be a burden. "I mean, genuinely cracked. It's happened to lesser people. What do you think?"

The cat responded by curling into a ball on a bed of moss, his mouth stretching into a yawn.

"We're not stopping to rest now, so you can bloody well think again."

He flicked his tail.

"This is _not_ a relationship where you get to tell me what to do," said James, but drew his sword - back scabbards were a nuisance - dropped it at his feet and sat down anyway, rolling up the map and shoving it into his bag with a noise of disgust. "Stupid bloody cat."

It would be good, he supposed, to rest his legs for a spell. He had always been active and fit, but ten straight days of walking with little food and a bed of hard ground at night would take its toll on the heartiest body.

The cat, who really needed a name, was already half asleep, so James leaned back against the alder and closed his eyes. The whispering grew louder still, and he let out an exasperated sound.

"I _am_ going mad," he said.

"On the contrary, I think you're perfectly sane."

His eyes flew open at once and he reached for his sword - even the cat had sprung to his feet - only to find himself face-to-face with a fairy.

He wasn't having a hallucination, this was actual, honest-to-goodness fairy with frantically beating wings, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, garbed in a dress of sunshine yellow shimmer, her long, brown hair bearing the gloss of a chestnut. She was prettier, yet stranger, than the pictures he'd seen in books as a child.

He'd never encountered a fairy before. They were Ravenclaw natives, before they'd been banished.

"Your Royal Highness," she said, her voice high and clear. "How wonderful to meet you at last."

"You're a fairy," he replied, stunned.

"That I am."

The cat, unmoved by such miracles of nature, settled back down to sleep.

"I mean, you're—" His eyebrows dipped. "What do you mean by 'at last?'"

The fairy tilted her pointed chin towards the sky. "We have been waiting for quite some time."

"We?"

From the leaves overhead came two more of her ilk to join her, one dark-haired and brimming with mischief, in dazzling, luminous white, the other fair and pale, with swirling skirts of lightest violet. They gazed at him with great curiosity, each wearing the same, enigmatic smile, as if they were party to a secret he knew not.

"My name is Cara," said the first. "Lady of tulips and queen of all fairies. These are my sisters, Mai, of the calla lily—" She swept a hand towards the mischievous fairy to her right. "And Grace, of the sweet pea," she finished, indicating the golden-haired sister to her left.

"Um," he said. Being a prince, he was used to introductions of great fanfare, but this was something new entirely. "I'm James, of nowhere in particular."

"The crown prince of Gryffindor," said Mai, zooming towards his face until she was merely an inch away, and he had to cross his eyes to see her. "Can _hardly_ be a man of no origin."

"Sister, please," said Cara gently.

"Well, it's true!" cried Mai, and poked his nose quite sternly. "Again, thank you, and with less falsehoods this time."

James blinked at her. "I'm James, of House Potter, son of the late King Fleamont and the, er, the rightful Queen Euphemia."

"And?"

"And... I'm... born of Gryffindor?"

"That's better, I suppose."

"I'm awfully sorry for lying."

"Oh, don't worry," she said, with a coquettish wink, and rubbed the spot she'd prodded. "You're so handsome that I suppose I can forgive you."

"Mai likes the handsome ones," said Grace airily.

"We all like the handsome ones," Cara agreed. "And you _are_ very handsome, it's true."

First the mad cat, now he was being flirted with by a trio of fairies. Perhaps his head had sustained greater injuries than he'd originally thought.

"Thank you?" he said, eyeing Mai warily - she had flown further down and was examining the half-healed cut on his forearm

"What lovely hair you've got," sighed Grace.

"You know, I was thinking the same thing," said Cara. "Absolutely singular."

"So very dark and wild."

"Indeed." Cara smiled coyly at him. "May I?"

"May you what?"

"Take a look, of course!" she sang, and suddenly, there were two fairies in his hair, their tiny feet pattering about like insects on his scalp.

"Fixed it," said Mai, and James looked down to find her kicking his arm for attention. The cut had vanished entirely, leaving his skin warm and pleasantly tingling.

"Oh."

"A 'thank you' would be nice, you know."

"Thank—"

"How marvellous!" Cara squealed, from atop his head. "It's as if every strand is determined to grow in an entirely different direction!"

"Are you tall?" Grace chimed in, appearing in front of him to tug on his shirt with surprising strength. "I do hope you're tall."

"Everyone's tall, compared to us," said Mai dryly.

"You _know_ what I mean—"

"Alright, wait - just - hang on a second!" he said, and scrambled to his feet. The fairies scattered quickly, but converged again as soon as he was steady, circling him at a dizzying pace. "What exactly are— Hey! _Don't_ poke that!"

"Sorry," said Mai, speeding out from between his legs. "Accident."

"Excuse my sisters and I," said Cara, coming to hover in front of his face. "We've been waiting for you for a decade."

The other two had finally stopped examining his crevices and limbs, and joined their sister, for which he was relieved. In the past, when James had imagined himself on the receiving end of rapt attention from a beautiful woman, there would be only one of her, and she would be human-sized, and he wouldn't be on an insane suicide mission to rescue another man's betrothed.

"Who told you I was coming?" he said. Snape had been adamant that secrecy was of the essence in extracting the Ravenclaw princess from her prison, lest her sister suspect him of orchestrating a power grab. If word had gotten out that James was on his way there...

"The trees," said Grace.

"The stars," put in Mai.

"And the flowers, of course," Cara finished. "Can't you hear them whisper?"

"Er—"

"So much sadness in you," said Grace, with a small, sorrowful smile. "You and the princess, both."

"Poor lost souls, waiting to collide," Cara agreed. "She's one of our own, you know."

"The princess..." said James, and frowned. "You mean, Princess Lily?"

"The very same."

"Princess Lily is a _fairy?"_

"No, dear, Rowena Ravenclaw was a fairy," Grace explained. "She fell in love with a human man, and surrendered her wings to be with him—"

"Which is revolting, quite frankly," said Mai darkly.

"Ravenclaw's magic was born with the children of Rowena and her lover," said Cara. "Any living soul who wields such power is considered to be of our blood, and therefore, beneath our care."

"But Ravenclaw's magic is dead—"

 _"Was_ dead," said Mai. "Now it's very much alive, and salvageable, if you'd be so kind as to whisk her away from that horrid castle."

"Terrible things, curses," said Cara. "And quite beyond our ability to break, but that's no matter, now that you're finally here."

"Only you can break it, see," said Grace.

James felt as if he'd been spun around repeatedly, slightly dizzy and quite confused. "What do I have to do with a—"

"You'll need a better sword," said Mai, flitting down to the ground. She prodded the ageing weapon with her toe. "This is just a disgrace."

"It was all Snape could spare."

"Urgh, _Snape,"_ said Mai, spitting the name from her tongue as if it tasted foul. "One of these days—"

 _"Sister."_

She gave an irritable sigh, and trailed her hand along the sword's blade.

In an instant, its plain wooden hilt had transformed, now a bright, ornate silver, inlaid with glittering rubies, and the blade was no longer dull and rusted, but thin and gleaming, and sharper than any James had ever seen.

"Go on," she said proudly. "Pick it up."

James did, and examined it closely, tossing it from hand to hand. The balance was perfect. The whole thing was perfect - as good or better than any the Gryffindor blacksmiths could have forged.

"You'll never need to sharpen it," said Mai, before he could say a word, then leveled a self-satisfied smile at her sisters. "Far better than anything man-made, for sure. Let's see these two do better than a sword."

"I'm more concerned with practicalities," said Grace, extending her fingers towards James's torso. The fraying brown sack at his hip instantly became a satchel of soft, fine leather. "Undetectable extension. You could fit a house inside this bag, but you won't feel a thing."

James shook the satchel. A moment ago, it had been heavy with the weight of the water skins he'd filled from a brook, but now it was as light as air. "Thanks."

"And _my_ concern," said Cara, with a sweep of her arm, and a large, flat rock was shaken loose from the ground. "Lies in protecting our princess, and in protecting you."

In another moment, the rock had become a large, crest-shaped shield, silver like the hilt of his sword, with yet more rubies encrusted at its center.

"Use them well, won't you?" Cara implored him, as he slid his arm through the straps, tested its weight, and found it as faultless as the two gifts that had gone before it.

He could have turned and gone home, it occurred to him. Slytherins didn't have magic, and with a sword and shield like this one, he reckoned he could cut down scores of Snape's guards, if not the man himself. Few people in the kingdom could best him in a duel, and Snape - he knew from years of tourneys - could barely lift a dagger without becoming an ungainly mess

But they cared about this princess, and though he wasn't sure why they'd chosen to put such faith in him, he knew it would be dishonourable to take their gifts and leave her where she was.

He may not have been a prince any longer, but he was still a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors weren't deceitful.

"I'll do my best," he promised, looking from one face to the other. "To get her out, I mean, and... to take care of her."

"We know you will," said Mai.

"And, well—" He cleared his throat. "Thank you, I suppose."

"It's no trouble," said Grace. "We're happy to help."

"Then I don't suppose you can do anything about this cat, can you?" he added, only half-serious, with a nod to the sleeping beast. "I can't seem to get him to leave me alone."

"Oh," said Cara, with a tinkling laugh. "Oh, no, I don't think so. You rather appear to have been adopted."

* * *

The castle Snape had spoken of, wherein the lost princess of Ravenclaw was housed, was a graveyard fit for a nightmarish tale.

It stood alone and gloomy in a vast expanse of cracked, brown earth, rising ominously above a nebulous fog that he knew to be magical, half in ruins, surrounded by a moat that had run dry centuries ago, filled now with some fetid, tar-like substance, the mossy grey stone of the courtyard smeared in several places with the unmistakable taint of blood, old and new.

The body of a man, whose gold-threaded livery had been delicately embroidered, lay decomposing on a set of steps, his face crushed to a pulp, one arm ripped clean from his body. Merlin only knew what creature had done such damage; trolls, perhaps, or a particularly vicious ogre, though most ogres were relatively harmless if left to their own devices.

Still, James had spent enough time around both to know that he'd rather face off against a troll than an ogre. Trolls were stupid, and one could smell them coming a mile off. For that reason, he was certain there were none around, nor did he believe he had much company of any other kind. It was all rather quiet, not so much as a pebble moving in the wind.

Too quiet.

James didn't often feel scared, but something about this place set the hairs on the back of his neck on end and made his blood run cold, despite the warmth of late spring, and he kept his sword drawn, just in case. His nerves may have fared worse, perhaps, if not for the cat, who stalked past dusty skulls and blood-stained breastplates with remarkable confidence. One could be forgiven for believing him to be a feline king, traversing his hall to ascend his throne, or a fat, purple cushion at the very least.

Some person, some remarkably evil monster, had seen fit to steal a nine-year-old girl from her bed and take her to this place.

Inside, past a large, rotting wooden door that was half-off its hinges, he found a dust-leaden hall with three stone staircases. They had been opulent once, no doubt. Now, they were losing a long-waged battle against time.

The staircase to the left had disintegrated into rubble halfway up, and James would have been risking his life to attempt to climb it.

The middle stairs lead to another floor, and was guarded by the vast, crumbling statue of a snarling dragon, its snapping jaws frozen in stone.

The stairs on the right were whole and solid, with fresh footprints, one set up and one set down, tracked into the dust.

"What do you think?" he said to the cat. "Break my neck? Fight a statue? Or fall into an obvious trap?"

The cat streaked off at once, coming to a halt at the end of the staircase on the right, then turned to him with a look of pure disdain, as if to ask why James was even questioning his actions, as if to say, 'she's right up there, you cumbersome fool.'

If it was good enough for him, it was good enough for James.

"Stay here," he said to the cat, and bent down once to pat his head as he moved past him. "Keep a lookout, or something. Merlin knows you're bloody good at staring."

For the first time in an entire week, the cat did as he was told. James would have to give him a name, when he came back.

If he came back.

The stairs went on for an age, winding in places, stretching on in an impossibly straight line in others - reaching higher, almost, than the castle itself - until he reached the top and found himself facing a single stone wall, undamaged and whole, drenched in the unmistakable scent of magic, and nothing but a bright blue sky to his left and right.

In the centre of the wall sat an arch with no door, and through that arch, a room.

It could have been a trap. Might have been. Probably was. But he'd spent two weeks walking, and starving, and sleeping on gravel and moss, endured the machinations of a devious cat, and been manhandled by three amorous fairies.

He was there for his mother, he remembered. He had to think about her now.

So in he walked, and there she was. A princess in a scarlet gown, and pearly slippers on her feet. Her long, dark red hair had been wound in an intricate braid that came almost to her hips. She was draped across her bed as if she'd simply stopped and fallen, sinking away in a sudden, elegant faint. One slender hand was resting lightly near her face, palm turned upwards.

She was pretty. Very pretty.

She was also quite unconscious.

James felt as if a basket of lead had been overturned in his stomach.

Not this. Not now.

He'd heard of this phenomenon; not in Hogwarts, but in other realms, courtesy of the travelling bards and singers who would come to the country and perform at feasts. Kidnapped princesses, forced by evil witches into deep, enchanted slumbers, cursed to remain in a comatose state until some handsome prince would...

Well.

Bugger.

What was he supposed to do now, carry her sleeping body all the way back to Gryffindor? Don't attract attention, Snape had said. How much _could_ he attract, meandering through the Burned Lands with an obviously wealthy woman thrown over his shoulder, not to mention a ruby-encrusted sword and a mad cat bringing up the rear? It was likely that an owl would reach her sister before James could reach the nearest village, a mere day's walk away. Carrying her was out of the question. He'd have to leave her here, and that spelled the end for his mother.

Perhaps she was just napping, and she'd wake up if he simply nudged her. Maybe that was it, and fate was not of a mind to be cruel to him today. Maybe this was what she did with her free time. Maybe she _liked_ to garb herself in beautiful gowns and fall into angelic slumbers, with perfectly positioned hands, on the off-chance that a painter felt like stopping by and making a likeness. He wasn't one to judge people for their hobbies. Peter had adored crocheting, and James had always told Sirius off when he felt of a mind to mock him for it.

"Hey," he said, and nudged her arm with the hilt of his sword. "Princess?"

Nothing.

He tried again, shaking her shoulder, hard this time, and raised his voice considerably. "Princess?"

Her eyelids didn't even flicker. Either she was a remarkably heavy sleeper, or there was some enchantment at play.

Bugger.

Bugger, bugger, _bugger._

He thought, in a bizarre flash of insanity, of stuffing her in the bag the fairy Grace had given him, but the poor thing would probably suffocate inside. That would be a real turnout for the books when he got back to Gryffindor - a dead princess tumbling out of a tiny leather satchel.

Kissing her seemed so... weird. Redundant. Sinister.

He shook her shoulder again. And nothing.

He'd have to bloody do it, then. The worst-case scenario was her continued sleep, and he'd never have to tell a soul what transpired.

So he dropped to his knees, laid the sword down beside him, pushed a stray hair from her forehead, and pressed his mouth to hers.

This was stupid, he instantly realised - a flighty, ephemeral moment of madness on his part - a ridiculous decision that didn't stand a chance in hell of working, and if Sirius could see him now he would never let him live it down, and it was downright creepy, actually, kissing an unconscious woman in the hopes that she'd wake up. They would arrest a man in Gryffindor for such a crime, and he was glad the cat wasn't around to see this happen, for Merlin only knew what kind of scratches he'd be forced to endure...

But then, she made a noise - _that_ noise - and the world became transformed in a heartbeat.

It might have been a sigh, or it might not, but James had never heard a sound as sweet regardless, nor so thoroughly contented, and something hot and foreign and _wonderful_ exploded in his chest when he realised that she was moving her lips in response to his.

James had kissed a sleeping woman for want of any other plan - the lost princess of Ravenclaw, no less - and she was _kissing him back._

The thought of that, of just how strange this all was, of how hard his heart was pounding in his ribs, was enough to jolt him back to his senses, so he pulled away from her lips and stared, suddenly transfixed by the dusty freckles on her pale cheeks, by the delicate curve of her nose, but mostly by her eyes, which were most certainly alert and open now. Large eyes. Starry eyes. The deepest emerald green he'd ever seen.

James had never, in his life, met or seen or _heard_ of a woman as beautiful as her.

"Hi," he said, his voice coming out in barely a whisper, dazed by her, entranced by her, and she'd stolen every fibre of him, somehow.

Her chest rose and fell just once, and she gazed at him like a girl seeing stars, and her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to speak.

Instead, she punched him in the face.


	3. Three

**Chapter Three**

Mary had been there, cheerful, coy, and visiting days earlier than expected. She'd brought new candles, and freshly carved soaps, and fed her with stew that tasted of earth to help her sleep. Lily had been having trouble lately.

That was the last thing she remembered.

She dreamed of seashells, the kind she would find on the shore beneath the chalk white cliffs, buried in the pebbled sand, all swirling shapes and florid lines of teal. She dreamed of pressing the prettiest one to her ear, and the faintest din of her sister's voice, of blood on jagged rocks that lurked beneath the tide, and an old, patched friend waiting sadly in a bed that was colder than death.

Then it shifted and changed, and became something else; the warmest, sweetest feeling, like being plucked from cold water and wrapped up tight by a roaring fire. Lily had been truly under, she could feel it in her head - the slightly painful weight of a too-deep slumber clunking heavily between her ears - but she'd slipped awake with buttery ease, and found herself being kissed.

Kissing.

She was kissing _him._ Actively. Willingly, as if it were only natural, and right, and when he pulled away she thought she'd never seen so lovely a face, but _that_ \- a glittering twilight moment that lay between the opaque and the clear - vanished with a pop as her mind sprang to life, and with fear plunging through her veins, she did what any sane woman would do.

Blood spluttered from his nose when her fist connected, and he staggered backwards with a deafening cry, clapping his hands to his face.

"YOU PERVERT!" she screamed, and scrambled from her bed. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

She grabbed the first thing to hand, in this case a thick, leather-bound book that sat on her bedside table, and threw her arms up, preparing to beat the living daylights out of him if he dared approach her again, but he seemed too concerned with his own face to notice. Her stomach and chest felt tightly constrained, and she realised that she appeared to have been laced into a gown - the tight, bold scarlet silk that made her skin appear too pale, but her blush too brilliant - or the tuberculosis dress, as she called it.

Or, more likely, Mary had snapped her fingers, while magic took care of the rest.

Why was she wearing this dress? It was entirely unsuited to anything other than making a dramatic entrance.

What on earth had Mary done to her?

"M'sorry!" cried her assailant, his voice muffled, for his nose and mouth were pressed into the palm of his hand. He was doubled over, though she had no sympathy to spare him.

"HOW DARE YOU?"

"I didn't—"

"WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO MARCH IN HERE—"

"I thought you were cursed!" he cried, his body swinging upwards, his face appearing from behind the hands. His nose did not appear to be broken, but she'd certainly done some damage. "I wasn't trying to—"

 _"Molest_ me?"

"No!" he yelped. "I'd never—"

"Clearly, you would!"

"No! No, I don't—" He sniffed, and wiped a fresh trickle of blood from his nostril. "Listen, don't - please, just - I _tried_ waking you up, I swear, but you wouldn't - honestly, I thought you were in a cursed sleep!"

She glared suspiciously at him, keeping the book raised high, poised to defend herself. Behind him, sitting primly on the table where she took her meals, sat a half-empty bowl.

Of course.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever Mary had put in her stew - likely the root of some flower, which would explain the taste, and fairies knew the properties of plants better than a Slytherin potioneer - had knocked her out enough for the fairy to dress her up like a child's doll, knowing that Lily wouldn't have agreed if she'd had the choice for herself. What a pretty picture she must have made, draped across her bed like a helpless maiden. If anyone knew how to package that kind of syrupy, sentimental tripe, it would be a bloody fairy. Their single-minded devotion to the forces of love and fate painted them in a positive light, but Lily had learned over the years that it oft resulted in morally ambiguous choices.

He might have been telling the truth. He might have been _that_ ridiculous.

Or he wasn't, and had just been taking advantage.

He hadn't really moved his mouth, though. He hadn't moved at all, except to pull away when she kissed him back.

"Could you - could you put the book down, please?" he said, with his hands up, palms facing towards her, as if to indicate that he posed no threat. "I mean, I haven't put much thought into my death, but I'd prefer not to go out to a copy of—" He squinted at the tome in her hand, then frowned. _"One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?_ Really?"

She blinked at him. "What?'"

"That's really what you were reading?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, no offence, but of all the books in the world—"

"Are you _questioning_ my choices?!" she cried, and swung the book behind her head. _"Seriously?!"_

The cheeky bugger deserved another smack, but he hopped backwards at once, his legs colliding hard with her footstool, a development she found almost as satisfying as the mess she'd made of his nose. She had never punched a person before, and it was gratifying to know that she could land one with such precision.

The kiss had been another first, she realised, her heart fluttering like a skittish butterfly, which seemed to indicate that she'd liked it.

That was strange.

"Merlin's arse, that hurt!" he cried, and shook his leg, as if it would somehow rid him of the pain. "What kind of person keeps a stool right in the middle of the floor?!"

"What kind of person kisses a defenseless woman while she's sleeping?"

"I _told_ you, I thought you'd been cursed—"

"Only by your presence, it seems," she said darkly, and dropped the book, letting it clatter to the floor by her feet. "Why are you here?"

"To - bloody hell," he muttered, righting himself. "To get you out of here, if I survive the next five minutes."

"Obviously, I know that—"

"You asked!"

"I think it's quite wise to question the motives of a man who kisses unconscious wom—"

"I'm _sorry!"_ he interrupted, his own voice rising by a decibel. "I didn't _want_ to kiss you, but some very overeager fairies _told_ me you were cursed, and then you wouldn't wake up and what was I supposed to do, carry you all the way back to Gryffindor?"

This took her aback. "What?"

"What?"

"To Gryffindor?"

"That's what I said."

"Why would my sister tell you to bring me to Gryffindor?"

"Your sister didn't send me," he said. "She doesn't know I'm here."

Now that he said it, it occurred to Lily that he didn't look anything like the kind of knight Petunia would have sent to her prison to find her, fail, and swiftly meet his maker. They were always of the same breed, well-dressed and cloyingly gallant, with tumbling blonde curls and a million airs and graces. This man was dressed in the simple clothes of a peasant, with no armour and no royal blue cloak to signify the nobility of her kingdom, nor did he proudly display any family crest. On the other hand, he wore eyeglasses, a Ravenclaw invention that only the truly elite could afford, and the sword that lay on the floor between them - an undoubtedly fine weapon inlaid with rubies - must have belonged to him. He certainly wasn't concerned with etiquette, nor could he have been further from a pretty, blonde fop. He was lean, brown and tall, and his jet black hair was the most unkempt mess she'd ever seen.

Lily had been locked up since the age of nine, it was true, but she knew _some_ things. She'd read books. She'd seen illustrations. Fairies were worldly creatures, capable of changing their size, who often dallied freely with humans they desired, and she had asked Mary questions, and gotten honest answers. She wasn't so naive that she couldn't recognise attraction when it socked her hard in the gut.

He was lovely, utterly and unquestionably, to look at.

"What do you mean?" she said, vexed to find herself blushing, but as her dress was slowly crushing her lungs, she could always blame that. "Who sent you, if not Petunia? Or did you come of your own volition?"

"I was sent," he said, his jaw clenching tight, as if he was speaking of something deeply unpleasant. "By the current king of Gryffindor."

"Severus Snape?"

"You _know_ about Snape?"

"I have a friend - a fairy - she keeps me up-to-date on all the news," she said, frowning. "What on earth does he want with me?"

"I assumed you'd know," he countered, returning her frown. "Isn't he your betrothed?"

"No!"

"He says he is—"

"He most certainly isn't!"

"—and that his father arranged it before you were—"

"You clearly don't know him at all," she said, shaking her head. "Severus lied about everything when we were children, and my parents _never_ would have agreed to that."

"Why not?"

"Because, not that this is any of your business, but the former king of Gryffindor wanted me to marry _his_ son, and my mother said—"

His eyes widened. _"What?!"_

"What?"

"Are you telling the truth?"

"Yes, I am. I specifically remember that my parents promised _not_ to enter me into another engagement until I came of age and decided for myself if I wanted to marry the crown prince," she finished. "Only then I was kidnapped, so there you have it, unless my sister agreed to the union in my absence, which would be frightfully counterprod— why are you staring at me like that?"

He was looking at her with his mouth slightly open, his eyes practically popping out of his head, as if he thought she were mad.

"You," he said, with an accusatory finger pointing to her chest. "Are _not_ engaged to the prince of Gryffindor."

"I never said I was—"

"You just said—"

"I said that I was engaged to _be_ engaged, which is different," she finished, with a shrug. "Anyway, what's it to you?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Marry whoever you like, all I care about is getting you out and back to Gryffindor as quick as I can."

"And delivering me to a compulsively dishonest traitor who thinks I'm his future wife?"

"You can refuse him, if you want, that's not my concern, I just need to get you there safely," he said. "Now, if possible? Don't know if you've noticed, but this castle's not exactly safe."

She couldn't believe his cheek. Didn't he consider that she might have plans for herself, were she ever able to escape?

"Sure," she said, with a dry laugh. "I'm right behind you, just like I was right behind the other twenty-seven fools who tried."

"Twenty-seven people couldn't get you out of an open door?"

"Open for you, cursed for me," she said, and crossed her arms. "It pushes me back if I try."

"So, how do I get you out?"

"Theoretically, by holding my hand and leading me across, but it hasn't worked once, so good luck."

He turned around and looked at the door, taking his time about it, and she stared at the back of his head in a detached sort of way.

His hair looked very soft.

"Those fairies seemed to think I could do it," he said eventually.

"Oh, did they?"

"Well," he said, turning to face her again. "They gave me that sword—"

"Fairies are nothing but flirts—"

"—and a shield, and—"

"Copped a feel while they were at it, no doubt," she finished. "They have a particular fondness for handsome men; don't go thinking you're anything special."

His eyebrows flew towards his hairline. "You think I'm handsome?"

"I think _you_ think you're handsome," she tightly replied. "And fairies are far too easily impressed, though if they knew you were coming, that explains why I wound up dressed like this."

"What do you mean?"

"That fairy I told you about earlier?" she said, and pointed to the bowl. "She brought me that stew, today or before, to help me sleep, and she must have stuffed me into this dress while I was unconscious. I couldn't tell you how long I was out before you got here."

He walked over to the table, picked up the bowl and sniffed at it.

"That's Valerian," he said, and pulled a face before he set it down. "That's a _lot_ of Valerian."

"How can you tell?"

"My mother is ill," he said, frowning down at the remnants of her stew. "She can't sleep sometimes, so I make her tea from Valerian root. One cup sends her right off, and that's not nearly as strong as what's in that bowl."

"I figured it was something like that—"

"Merlin."

"—haven't really been out in nature recently enough to start distinguishing smells—"

"I can't believe they did that to you," he said. "I'm really sorry—"

"You didn't do it."

"No, but that's still so—"

"Awful?"

"Yeah," he agreed, looking at her rather helplessly. "I mean, _why?"_

She gave a shrug. "If I know Mary, she was probably hoping for a romantic first meeting. Perhaps she was afraid that you'd run away screaming if you caught sight of me in a nightshirt."

"Oh."

"I wonder how she knew that you were the type of idiot who thought he could break a curse with a _kiss—"_

"In my defence, didn't it work on that princess from the eastern islands? White Frost, or somethi—"

"It was Snow White, and that was _true love's_ kiss," she quickly interjected, her tone scornful. "You have to be madly in love for that to work, and even then, most _actual_ couples can't generate that kind of magic."

"You seem to know a lot, considering you've been locked up for a decade."

"And you don't seem to know anything, considering you've been free the whole time."

"Yeah, well," he said, with a half-laugh. "What a romantic first meeting. We'd best thank that fairy mate of yours."

He would not - she wouldn't _let_ him - provoke a smile from her lips, because he was an idiot, a stupid idiot for coming here when it likely meant his death. The thought of that - of Mary flitting into her room in a few days, reporting that she'd found his body in the grounds, blood-soaked and still, lifeless eyes gazing blankly at a starless sky - set something heavy to sink in her in the pit of her stomach.

She didn't even know his name, but like a splinter breaking through her skin, he'd gotten to her somehow. She cared about what happened to this prat, and she didn't know if that was good or bad - the return of some humanity she'd lost, or a major sign of weakness - but she didn't like the way it felt.

It was probably because he was handsome, and she was shallower than she'd previously thought.

"Who are you?" she said, regarding him curiously. "What's your name?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek before he answered her, looking thoughtful, as if he was party to some internal debate. "It's James."

"What?" She gaped at him for a moment. "You mean, you're _Prince_ James?"

"No, of course not!"

"But you—"

"I'm nobody, honestly."

"Nobody's nobody."

"You're a princess, you would say that," he countered, one hand raking through his hair. "It's a very popular and attractive name, you know."

"But you're definitely a noble."

"I'm not a noble."

"Yes, you are, it's quite obvious."

He let out an exasperated sigh. "I told you, those fairies gave me the sword and the shield, they're not mine."

"Did they give you those glasses, too?" she fired back, with a raised brow. "More to the point, are the common folk of Gryffindor routinely taught to read?"

"The literacy rate amongst the smallfolk has improved quite a lot, actually."

"Oh, the _literacy_ rate," she said airily. "You're not a noble _at all."_

"Are you such a snob that you think that non-nobles can't read or wear glasses or be exceptionally handsome?"

"I _knew_ you thought you were handsome," she said, and held her hand out, palm upwards, with a resigned sigh. "Right, fine, if you're not going to be honest, let's just have at it."

"Have at it?"

"Better take your shot," she said. "And get this over with."

He took a step towards her, reaching out, then dropped his arm and eyed her outstretched fingers with some trepidation.

"Why does this feel like a trap?" he said.

"Because I've been sitting in this room for ten years, _pretending_ that I couldn't get out, all for the sake of setting a trap for you, a person I don't even know."

"You've got a real gift for unnecessary malice, has anyone ever told you that?"

"No, but thank you for that glowing compliment," she sweetly retorted. "Well?"

He made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, but walked over and took her hand in his anyway. This caused an altogether pleasant sensation that Lily much resented, and earned him an involuntary shiver, though if he'd noticed, he didn't mention it.

"So," he said, and glanced over his shoulder. "I just walk out?"

"In your own time, please. I've got nowhere else to be."

He took a couple of steps back, pulling her gently with him, then stopped. "This is strange."

"It's no stranger than every other time," she informed him. "Carry on."

He resumed his walk. "I bet I can do it, you know. I'm very talented."

"I'm quite sure you can't."

"How much are you willing to wager on that?"

"Whatever you want," she said. "It doesn't matter."

He reached the door and backed out slowly, pulling her along still, and Lily braced herself to meet the usual resistance, and for him to try again, tugging helplessly at her hand until he exhausted himself and was forced to admit defeat.

But he pulled her through.

She felt as if the air had exploded, finding herself on the other side of a door she had never believed she could pass, two feet firmly planted on a floor that floated on clouds, with a descending stone staircase before her and nothing but sky - a bright, beautiful, brilliant blue sky - to her left and to her right, stretching resplendent above her head.

"Told you," he said, his tone cocky, grinning from ear to ear, as if he'd done something ever so commonplace, when it was anything but.

She hadn't seen sky in a decade.

It was beautiful. And terrifying and _blue._

James made as if he would let go of her hand, but she squeezed it hard, clinging on for dear life, and backed across the threshold, stepping in and then back out the room, with an ease of movement she hadn't imagined possible since the day she'd learned to accept her fate. The transparent force that had so often impeded her, unseen but unforgiving, was gone completely.

It shocked her, though perhaps it should not have done. She had felt the air shatter around her as she moved, invisible to her eyes, but real, very real, though it seemed only natural that it would reform any moment, and suck her back in, seal her up, drag her back to reality.

She let go of his hand and did it again, darting into the room and out, once and twice and then again, because this _couldn't_ be right. She must have been dreaming, even still. Seashells. Blood. A kiss like powdered sugar. Now this.

Once more she tried, but it didn't come back.

"You broke it," she said faintly.

"I did," he agreed. "Well, we did."

"I don't - how?"

"I'm very good at breaking things."

She felt quite dizzy, and more than a little breathless.

"Bones, mostly," James continued. "Usually my own, but there was a time with my mate's wrist—"

"You _broke_ it!" she repeated, the pitch of her voice careening upwards, and roughly grabbed his arm. "This is - I mean, you _can't_ have - but you did and I don't understand—"

"Princess—"

"What?"

"Are you alright? You're as white as a sheet," he said, with a little crease between his eyebrows. "I mean, you already were, a little, but—"

"James," she said. Her heart was pounding like a drum. "It's James, right?"

He seemed taken aback, but he nodded all the same.

His eyes were hazel, close enough to hers that she could see her own face reflected back at her.

"So," she said, would-be firmly. "That's your name and I'm - I'm Lily. You must call me Lily, from now on."

"I don't think that's proper—"

"I don't _care_ what's proper!" she squeaked. _You can't call me 'Princess,' you're supposed to be my bloody soulmate,_ she wanted to cry, the words jammed behind her eyes like a freshly-seared brand. "You just broke a ten-year-old curse like it was nothing!"

"I know you don't know me very well," he said. "But you really shouldn't be surprised, there aren't many things I _can't_ do."

She gawked at him unattractively. He was so _conceited._

And handsome. Conceited and handsome and _stupid,_ but daring enough to come all the way here, and he'd broken the curse that anchored her to this place, just like the fairies promised.

What was supposed to happen now? Should she have been filled at once with passionate stirrings? Suffused with love? This felt nothing like the flowery passages she'd read in novels, or the romantic tales that Mary would spin of an evening, as she braided wildflowers into Lily's hair. She just felt confused, and frightened, and terribly overwhelmed.

Part of her wanted to kiss him again, a full-blooded, fully conscious kiss like she ones she'd read about, just to see what it would feel like, but a bigger part of her wanted to knock him on his arse for flooding every corner of her small, contained life with too much, too fast.

She must ignore this shade of her complex rainbow. She hadn't room in her head, nor her heart, to bargain with the intricacies of fate.

"I mean, obviously those fairies could see my worth," he carried on, and ruffled his hair. He looked so pleased with himself that it might have infuriated her, had she been less preoccupied. "Ravenclaws aren't known for their bravery in combat, so it's no wonder they needed to look—"

"Stop," she said, and shook his arm, then dropped her hand. She turned around and stepped, for the hundredth time in precious few minutes, it seemed, into her chamber. "I need—"

"What?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well, take your time," he told her, with unexpected sensitivity, following her inside. "You've just had a very big shock, I suppose."

Petunia had ensured, ten years back, that Lily's prison was the height of luxury, perhaps supposing herself kind, but in her soft sheets, ornate goblets and thick, handwoven rugs she had found no comfort. It had been Mary, in her infinite generosity, who had blessed her with her bookcase, made her candles and soaps and pretty little trinkets, brought her food and brushed her hair. A prison could never truly be a home, not without hope or light or the company of friends, but Mary had tried, and done her very best.

"I need to bring some things," she said, staring around the room. "They're all I have, I can't just—"

Her words caught in her throat.

Ten years, she had lived in this room. Ten years of endless circular strolls on the hard stone floor, ten years of dreaming of the colour of trees, of book after book after book, of the flowers Mary brought to soothe her, of the endless questions, and streams of tears, of nights of hard, bleak hopelessness and moments of occasional cheer. Her whole world had shrunk to the size of four walls, her worst nightmare and her only comfort in one, and it was big and vast and strange outside, and now she had to leave.

Her stomach was churning with fear.

This didn't make any sense. Lily wanted to leave. She hated this place. She'd spent so many years hoping, until hope itself seemed like a fruitless thing. She had planned on what she'd do when she escaped, where she'd go, mapped out the places she'd need to avoid with Mary's assistance. She had imagined this moment to be a joyous thing, but she was feeling too many things at once, and happiness hadn't even made an appearance.

She _wanted_ to leave, and she didn't.

"I can help with that, actually," said James, and unhooked his satchel from where it hung over his shoulder, strapped across his torso. He held it out for her to examine. "One of the fairies gave me this. It's got an undetectable extension charm, you can fit anything you want in there, and it's completely weightless."

"A fairy gave you this?"

"Yes."

"And you - what are you keeping in here?"

"Just food," he said. "And the shield."

"You didn't bring anything else with you? No extra clothes? Nothing at all?"

"Wardrobe's a bit lacking at the moment."

She took the satchel from him, the leather soft beneath her fingers. "And I have your permission to use this?"

"I offered, didn't I?"

She opened the satchel and reached inside, deeper and deeper until her entire arm was submerged and she was groping around in empty air.

"There's nothing in here."

"There is," said James. "Not much, but I figured out that if you think about what you want, you'll find it right away."

But Lily couldn't think about what she wanted. According to fate, and fairies, and the curse he'd obliterated in a fraction of an instant, she should have wanted _him_ , but she could barely decide if she wanted out of this room or not.

No. She did want out. She _did._ Her mind was playing tricks on her, telling her that she wanted to stay as a way to deal with her fear. She had read about this, _prepared_ for it, even hoped to suffer from this phenomenon, rather than spend the rest of her life imprisoned. She was clever, and she was better than this. She wasn't going to be a coward.

"Books," she said under her breath.

"Pardon?"

She dropped the satchel on the ground, sitting open and expectant, and moved to her bookcase, which was old and thick, and had been hand-carved from a single piece of oak - then enchanted - by Mary, as a gift to make her life a little brighter. Hooking her fingers through the gap between the bookcase and the wall, Lily pulled as hard as she could, releasing a breath when it moved an inch towards her. "Help me move this."

"What are you doing?"

"Currently," she said, with a huff of breath. "I'm trying to get this bookcase into _that_ bag."

"What on earth do you need a bookcase for?"

"Because it's enchanted."

"And?"

"And, I can get my hands on any book ever written with this thing."

"This is pointless, we've got two _weeks_ of walking to do," he said. "We're not going to need books."

She stopped trying to shift the bookcase and frowned at him, unsure of how to explain to a fully-grown man that arming oneself with an endless wealth of information was a prudent decision. "Books are _always_ useful."

"If you need to build an abnormally large bonfire, maybe."

"You know, I'm really starting to understand why you were overwhelmed by the scope of my knowledge," she sighed. "Are you going to help me with this or must I be forced to pretend to stroke your ego to get you to do it?"

He looked so offended that she almost laughed. "I don't respond to having my ego stroked."

"Right," she agreed. "And you're not a noble, either. Could you put those muscles to good use and _help me_ , please?"

He looked as if he wanted to retort, but swallowed it, and helped her to drag the bookcase away from the wall and push it into the bag, which expanded like the jaws of a snake to swallow it whole.

"Great," she said, when it was done, then darted to her bed. "Blankets."

"Blankets?"

"No, wait, I should put them on top."

"What logic are you applying here?"

"We might need - yes," she said, her mind racing through a million different scenarios. She spun around and moved to the other side of the room, squatting next to a wooden cabinet which housed the plates, bowls and cups that her sister had bestowed upon her for reasons that only Petunia might explain. There were thieves and all sorts of nefarious creatures in the Burned Lands; it seemed like a good idea to bring objects to trade. "Come here, and help me pack all of these."

"Goblets?" said James, looking incredulous, when Lily removed two, large and silver, from the cabinet. "You think you're going to need sapphire-encrusted _goblets_ on the road?"

"Yes, we might, actually."

"I didn't know that we'd be having a banquet in the middle of the woods," he said, with a laugh. "If I had, I would have packed my good rags."

She dropped from her haunches to her knees, and looked up at him with an expression she hoped might convey how little patience she felt she had, and how deeply he had annoyed her, or even how shaken she was by this whole ordeal, if only to appeal to his sense of humanity.

"I have _never_ said this to anyone in my life," she said, in a shaky imitation of composure. "Which I'd like you to know in advance, because I'm _not_ a terrible person, but need I remind you that I am a princess?"

"And?"

"And, with that in mind, I'd like to order you to stop talking—"

"It doesn't work if you order someone politely—"

"For the love of Merlin, _shut up!"_ she exclaimed, brandishing the goblets in what she felt was an adequately threatening manner, because he eyed them warily. "I can bring whatever I want and you're not to question it, you absolute cumberworld!"

Judging by his blank expression, her cutting insult had not affected him as it should. "What the bloody hell is a cumberworld?"

"It means," she said loftily, her nose tipping towards the ceiling. "I can't remember _exactly_ what it means right now but I read it in a book and I know it's bad, so just stop it, okay? Stop it, and help me pack, or I swear to Merlin I'll push you down the stairs."

Perhaps there were a lot of stairs, and he thought he wouldn't survive the fall. Perhaps her increasing panic had scared him. Perhaps he was a decent person, after all - she supposed she must hope he was, if he were the man to whom fate had seen fit to tie her. Whatever the reason, he responded to her threat by buttoning his mouth, and dropped to his knees next to her.

A now-dead curse thought that he was her soulmate, she reflected, as she passed him a plate. _Him._ Her supposed great love. A man who thought that books were useless.

She had threatened to push her soulmate down the stairs.

The thought of it made her laugh strangely, and he tossed her an uneasy glance.

This was all too much.


	4. Four

**Author's Note:** I'm so sorry for the delay! I've been quite ill, and the action scene in this chapter was a pain to write, but at least James gets to do something pretty cool on his birthday!

 **Chapter Four**

The lost princess of Ravenclaw could dole out an insult with as much bite as his mother, was dangerously adept with her fists, and righteously indignant enough to cut through James's contrition and annoy him greatly. She spoke to him as if she thought he was thick, and had no qualms about barking orders in his direction like a skittish military leader, calling upon him to help her pack a variety of utterly useless objects that 'might come in handy,' from sweet-smelling soaps - carved into the shape of roses - to a jewel-leaden tiara that formed the head of an eagle.

One would have thought that she would be the slightest bit grateful to him for breaking the curse that had held her prisoner for a decade, but he felt as if she rather resented him for it.

She thought she was smarter than him, and wasn't shy about announcing it.

She was probably right, he moodily reflected, as he carted an armful of gowns from her wardrobe to his bag.

She was far too good for Snape.

It took ages to pack up her belongings because she was constantly stalling herself, throwing things into the bag and taking them out again, occasionally stopping to sit on the floor and take deep breaths, and debating the usefulness of things like quills and sewing needles for far longer than those items deserved. His opinion was never sought, which was fine by him because he couldn't see the use in anything she chose to take along, and if she hadn't been so set on snapping at him every few minutes for 'getting in the way,' it would have been a relatively painless experience. He supposed he should be grateful that she hadn't forced him to move the four-poster bed, or her large, copper bathtub, but as it was, the princess had succeeded in getting on his last nerve by the time she decided she was done.

The entire room had been stripped bare by the end. Even the footstool had been packed, which made James wonder if she was considering her things in terms of how effective a weapon they would make, and how much pain he would be in should she opt to use them. She had threatened him half-a-dozen times while they loaded the contents of the room into his satchel, and given what she'd done to his nose, he didn't doubt her ability to knock his block off should mood strike her.

She had pulled and fiddled with her braid so much as they packed that once they were finished, and she stood in the middle of the room, staring mutely at the wall, it was no longer tidy, and several long strands of red hair had escaped to frame her face.

"I suppose we should go now," she said quietly, more to the room than to him.

"That's the idea," he replied, shouldering his bag. It weighed as little as if she had packed feathers. "Unless you need a minute."

She looked around, her eyes raking over hanging tapestries on the walls, her undressed bed, the empty space where her bookcase had been. Her shoulders rose and fell just once.

"No," she said. "I don't."

Then she turned and walked right out of the room, and led the entire way down the stairs in complete silence, which might have made for a pleasant interlude after her barrage of scorn, but he found to his annoyance that he preferred her talking.

She was evidently distressed by the turn of events, which was concerning. James had seen many prisoners released from Pride Castle - those his parents had deemed undeserving of exile but befitting punishment - after long spells of incarceration. Many became so accustomed to the dungeons that freedom was an overwhelming struggle, and they were men far older than the princess, who had served less time. She had spent her formative years alone in a windowless room, and James couldn't begin to imagine what was going on inside her head.

He didn't know if he wanted to ask, lest she hand him an opportunity to care more than he already did.

At his best, James could often be overzealous, incautious, and prone to ignore the warnings his brain concocted, and for a moment - as he'd stared into a pair of magnificent green eyes that surely had no equal on earth - he'd been convinced that he'd just met the woman of his dreams. Then the princess socked him in the face, quite rightly, and with his tender, bleeding nose had come clarity, but even so, he had to be wary. She was deeply irritating, but beautiful, and clever right off the bat, which made for a rather appealing package despite her blatant distaste for him.

If James was to spend two weeks in her company, he'd need to be mindful of the direction of his feelings, and take care not to trip into some pointless, doomed infatuation. He was, unfortunately, a bit of a romantic, and had borne his fair share of teasing on account of it.

James had never been very good at being careful, but then, he'd never had a dying mother to think about.

A dying mother who'd never told him that she'd wanted him to marry this girl, and must have been serious about it, if she'd sent her husband to make a formal request. There wasn't a chance that his father would have made such a decision without Euphemia's input. Not so much as a menu had gone unapproved by the queen in the entire duration of her reign. It occurred to him that he ought to have words with his mother when he returned to Gryffindor, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say, aside from complimenting her excellent taste.

It was just as well that he hadn't told the princess who he was, and not just because he didn't particularly want to spend their journey to Gryffindor discussing the fact that their respective parents had wanted them wed. The shame of losing his kingdom to the king of Slytherin, of all people, was a pain he felt every day, because he should have insisted that he be allowed to carry a wand into that banquet, as was his right as the crown prince of Gryffindor. He should have been able to protect his parents, and his home, and his people, but had failed on all three counts. His father was dead, his mother dying, his best friends rotting in a dungeon and his kingdom in peril, all because of James's negligence.

Breaking the curse, not that he knew exactly what that meant, had made him feel good about himself for the first time in months, but the princess seemed decidedly less confident in his ability to protect her. The last thing she needed was further reason to doubt his ability, and it was on this that he was ruminating when they reached the bottom of the stairs, and she scared the life out of him by letting out a high-pitched scream.

"What?!" he said quickly, and drew his sword from his back at once, but she didn't answer him, racing down the last few steps and off to the right. He followed at speed, and found that she had thrown herself to her knees beside the clawed foot of the dragon statue.

In her arms was a large, fluffy, decidedly orange bundle.

"It's a cat!" she cried delightedly, smiling for the first time since James had met her - the bright, excited, painfully pretty smile of a girl experiencing pure joy - though it was aimed entirely at the cat, and not at him.

"Don't shout like that!" he scolded her, letting his sword arm drop to his side. "Do you want to start attracting trolls?"

But she ignored him, her attention captured completely by the cat, who was snuggling into her bosom with great enthusiasm, purring as if he'd never known love before this moment.

The little shit had never shown James that much affection. He simply stared at him with cold, condescending eyes, until he got whatever he wanted, usually fish, or a two-hour nap beneath a tree. He had sacrificed time, energy and dry trousers, day after day, all for the sake of keeping that cat well fed, and not once had he gotten a cuddle.

"Aren't you the handsomest little man I've ever seen?!" the princess was cooing, as she climbed to her feet with the cat nestled happily in her arms. "Yes, you are! You're just the sweetest—"

"He's really not."

"—and you're so _fluffy!"_ she squeaked, pressing her cheek to his. The cat's eyes locked onto James's, and he blinked in an owlish manner, as if to mock his jealousy - whether he was jealous of her, because the cat had allowed her to hug him, or of the cat, because of the attention this goddess-like woman was lavishing upon him quite undeservedly, he couldn't even tell - and that was the last straw. He returned his sword to its scabbard and marched over.

"That," he said haughtily, and snatched the beast from her arms. "Is _my_ cat. Get your own."

The princess blinked at him. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"It's just..." she said, and nodded to the cat, who was struggling to return to her embrace. "He doesn't seem to like you very much."

"I'll have you know that this cat _loves_ me."

"Oh, so it's not just me, and you elicit this kind of hostility from your friends and loved ones?"

"You know - _ouch!"_ he yelped, having received a vengeful claw to the arm. "Most people think I'm a delight—"

"That's difficult to believe."

"—and I'm personally inclined to think that this hostility you speak of is a ginger thing," he finished, and held the cat at arm's length. "Completely unconnected to me."

"Why?" she said, and crossed her arms. "Haven't you kissed the cat against his will?"

"You're _never_ going to let that go—"

"I don't think he's yours at all," she interrupted. "I think he happened to be here when we came outside, and you're just being petty."

"You think I'd be petty over a cat?"

"It's highly unlikely that anyone would bring their pet on a rescue mission, and you haven't mentioned his name once, so yes."

"For your information, he followed me here, and he _does_ have a name," James retorted.

"Which is?"

For a split second, he felt a thrill of sheer panic, but then he looked at the cat and the cat looked at him, and a name clunked into his brain with a stunning kind of certainty. "Algernon."

"Algernon?" said the princess flatly.

"It was a mutual decision," he continued, with a strange feeling that this was true. He held out the cat for her to inspect. "Don't you think he looks like an Algernon?"

"I think you're full of shit."

"I think that's awfully unfit language for a princess."

She looked for a moment as if she was about to smile at him, but instead she lifted a hand to scratch Algernon's chin. "I think, Algernon, that it's rather cruel of your pet idiot to deny me a cuddle when I love cats so dearly and you're the first one I've seen in ten years."

"Not true. I'd never deny you a cuddle, but you don't seem interested."

"You've done enough, thanks," she said, though a rosy blush crept into her cheeks, and James felt a different kind of thrill altogether, and this was an incredibly dangerous path to tread with his situation being what it was. He had his mother and Snape to think about, looming always at the forefront of his fears, and besides, she was haughty and unpleasant, and he didn't particularly like her.

She certainly didn't like him, so he supposed it wasn't an issue.

"We should leave," he said, and set Algernon on the ground. The cat immediately sprang towards the princess and started to rub against her skirt. "Judging by some of the bodies I've seen around here, there are plenty of trolls in the area, and there are three hundred miles between here and the capital—"

"I'm not going to Gryffindor."

"Pardon?"

The princess lowered herself to her knees once more to stroke Algernon's fur, not seeming to care if she got her gown dirty on the dusty stone floor. Through the open wooden door that lay fifty feet behind her, he could see that the fog outside had thickened since he entered the castle. "Inside your bag is a map that Mary helped me to make. It shows the locations of all of the troll and warlock settlements in the Burned Lands that we can avoid—"

"There were none the way I came."

"But I'm not going back the way you came," she said, with a cold glare. "I'm going to Ravenclaw, through one of the hidden mountain paths that lie to the north of here, and back to the Palace d'Helene. You'll need to come with me, since you've got all of my things—"

"I know you want to see your sister—"

"My sister is the _last_ person I want to see, believe me."

"So why—"

"I'll explain on the way," she said, and stood up, with the cat in her arms again. She pressed an absent kiss to the top of Algernon's head and spun around on her heel. "Get the map, would you?"

She strode away, trailing her skirts unconcernedly across the floor, and he sped after her at once.

"We can't go to Ravenclaw," he told her, when he caught up.

"Yes, we can."

"No, we can't, because I _have_ to take you to Gryffindor."

"Just because you broke the curse, that doesn't make me your property."

"I never said it did!"

"You seem pretty confident in telling me where I should be going."

"Because I don't have a choice!" He was starting to feel slightly panicked. The princess didn't seem like the type to give in easily, and short of physically forcing her - which was the last thing he wanted to do - he didn't know what tools he had in his arsenal that might convince her to change her mind. "You don't understand how bad it will be for my family if I don't - Severus Snape said—"

"I'm not marrying Severus Snape! I'd rather eat my own head—"

"So don't marry him! Refuse him, if you want. You're a princess, he can't hold you against your will—"

"Oh, can't he?"

"He'd know better than to mess with a royal—"

"Except he doesn't," she said, and stopped short, turning towards him. They were outside now, feet away from a festering body, if James remembered correctly, though the fog was so thick and opaque that he could discern their location only by the sight of the crumbled stone archway that separated the castle courtyard from the outside world. The princess didn't seem to notice a thing, however; all of her attention was focused on him, as was a glaring Algernon's. "He _murdered_ the king of Gryffindor—"

"You think I don't know that already?"

"I think you know more about it than you're letting on, actually," she said, with narrowed eyes. "And that's fine, it's your prerogative to lie if you want, you don't owe me anything, but I'm not going—"

"There's nothing to stop you from going to Ravenclaw once you've refused him—"

"I need to go to Ravenclaw now, before my sister finds out that I'm gone—"

"What _is_ this thing with you and your sister—"

"She's the one who locked me up here, you idiot!" she cried, looking almost wild, as if it pained her to say it aloud. "And if she finds out—"

The earth shuddered beneath their feet with an almighty rumble, and they both jumped, startled.

"What was that?" said the princess. "Did you—"

He shushed her, which might have earned him a slap, but for the second tremor that ripped violently through the ground, and an even more thunderous din that surged up strong behind their backs.

James turned in the direction of the castle.

Something was moving inside it, unseen but coming closer - something great and loud and _huge_ \- scraping against the floor, knocking into the walls, sniffing as if to discern a scent. A third tremor jolted through the courtyard, sending a nearby pillar crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust, and a squirming Algernon suddenly leapt to the ground, and scurried off to hide.

"It doesn't want me to leave," whispered the princess, who had turned whiter than snow.

"What?"

"The castle," she said, staring at the creaking wooden door with frightened eyes. "My sister, she paid—"

The castle wall exploded in a burst of flame.

The princess screamed, and James darted backwards with a cry of his own, grabbing hold of her arm as he went to pull her with him, as an enormous stone dragon - once a statue, now very much alive - came clawing its way into the courtyard, the walls tumbling around its barraging body like tiny, falling pebbles.

Fear, such as he'd never felt in his life, caught his heart in a vice grip.

The dragon was dissolving - or at least, the stone around it was - as it transformed before his eyes, from a solid grey statue into a snarling, skeletal thing, all bone and sinew and thick, hard skin, ice white with deep blue scales along its back, its wings unfurling at either side, its eyes a bright, burning red. When it roared, it revealed fangs as long as a human arm, each one as sharp as a blade.

He pulled the satchel from around his shoulders and tossed it to the princess. "Put this on."

"What?"

"Put it on," he repeated, and drew his sword. "Now."

She didn't ask again, but pulled it over her own body. "What now?"

"There's a shield in there," he instructed, and took several steps backwards - the dragon was moving closer to where they stood - beckoning her to follow, though she didn't seem to need his encouragement. "Run, somewhere safe, and get it out, and if I can find you—"

The beast caught sight of them, and charged.

"Never mind," he said, and shoved her away from him. "Run!"

She was gone by the time the dragon reached him, and James had but a split second to move, diving behind a pile of rusted old cauldrons, as the first stream of fire hit the ground where he'd just been standing.

Nothing, not so much as a spark, touched his skin, but he felt the heat from it all the same, blisteringly hot, enough to strip skin from bones. The cauldrons took on the heat immediately, and he ran out from behind them, lest they collapse upon him - one more tremor might have done it - and boil him to death, and immediately the dragon caught him in its line of sight, and swooped, its jaws snapping in its haste to pierce his flesh.

Without his shield, he'd take teeth over fire, but when he swung his sword at the dragon's head - once, twice, and a third time as it lunged and gnashed and did its best to swallow him - it merely bounced uselessly off its snout. Its skin was impenetrable, and James might as well have been smacking it with pillows, for all the good it did.

Its eyes, though, large and liquid, and redder than rubies, presented a clear weakness.

He was too exposed here. He needed cover.

He ran clean across the courtyard, in the opposite direction to where the princess had run, to the corner of the grounds surrounded by the sturdiest walls, which housed what must have once been a garden of ornamental statues, but was now a graveyard of pillars and broken marble figures. The dragon followed at speed, still keeping its head close to the ground.

Another streak of scalding fire shot past his elbow as he ducked behind a pillar, out of sight of the beast, and the dragon slowed his movements, crouching low, its wings tucked against its sides, creeping closer and closer to James's hiding place, sniffing the air as if it might inhale him. It wasn't a stupid animal by any means - it was a hardened predator, woken from stone after ten long years, and starving, and stalking its next meal.

When it was close enough for James to feel the warmth of its breath, he took his shot.

Springing into view, he swung for the dragon's eye, but missed, his sword colliding with an rock-hard fang, racing to the left when the monster drew back upon impact, crouching this time behind a one-armed statue. The creature, realising that it had not been hurt, ducked down again, a deafening snort blasting from its smoking snout, and was merely feet away when there came a clanging sound from the other side of the courtyard - the princess, perhaps, or Algernon - and it turned his head to inspect the source.

Not stupid, but very easily distracted.

He whistled loudly, successfully capturing the dragon's attention, and when it swooped down to find him again, its chin skimming against the ground, James leapt out from behind the statue and drove his sword right into one open, roving red eye.

The dragon flung its head towards the sky with a howl of pain, staggering back a step, and for a moment, James thought it had retreated, but then it it screeched and swung its tail towards him, long and hard as leather, curling round its body. It crashed into a chalk white pillar, and there was a noise like a volcanic eruption, and he felt himself being thrown backward, his sword flying out of his hand. His body, and the back of his head, hit the wall with a sickening crack, and he hadn't lost his glasses but everything was blurry, and something white and tall and solid was falling, falling, directly down upon him.

An excruciating pain tore through his left shoulder, and he was well-and-truly trapped, crushed against the wall by a fallen pillar, his sword lying several feet away, unreachable and useless, and the dragon reared back, tossed its head once into the air, jaws unhinging in preparation to strike, to burn him alive, or to swallow him whole, and this was it, he was going to die...

Algernon landed in his lap, and sprang, racing toward the dragon in a streak of orange fur.

The beast's head jerked to one side, its attention diverted, as the cat darted right and then left, zig-zagging his way across the courtyard, until he disappeared between the dragon's feet and it turned on its massive hind legs, the ground shaking beneath its clawed feet, determined to locate and kill this new distraction.

Then the princess was there, appearing as if out of nowhere, and dropped to her knees beside him.

"I'm going to try to move this off you," she told him, gripping the pillar with both hands. Her voice sounded very far away. The back of his head was throbbing.

"You're pretty," he told her dizzily. "Did you know that?"

"Now," she grunted, for she was pulling as hard as she could. "Is not the time to be romantic. You've got one good arm. Help me."

He pressed his right hand against the pillar, pushing with all the strength he could muster, and she pulled with just as much enthusiasm, her face turning red with the effort, until together they managed to shift it off him, letting it fall against the wall.

"You need to stop going for its head - hey," said the princess urgently, and grabbed his face between her hands. "Look at me."

His head was swimming, but his eyes found hers, and she came into sharper focus.

He felt as if he already knew every detail of her face.

He felt like he'd quite like to kiss her again, before the dragon devoured them both.

"M'looking," he muttered.

"You'll never kill it if you go for the head, it's got too many teeth, and it's too dangerous—"

"So what—"

"You need to get underneath it."

"What?"

"Get your sword—"

"Its hide is thicker than a stone wall," James protested. "A sword won't—"

"A normal sword won't, but yours is fairy-made," she said. The world was starting to steady around them. "A dragon's chest and belly are weaker than its back. Get underneath it, and strike as hard as you can."

Behind her, the dragon had its back to them, and was thrashing with frantic speed, roaring its displeasure, desperate to get at Algernon, who was weaving speedy patterns across the courtyard, drawing him further and further away from them both.

"I know you're in pain," she continued. "I know it hurts, but—"

"I'm fine," he said. "Help me up."

She didn't need to be asked twice, but hooked her arm around his waist and helped him climb to his feet. He retrieved his sword from where it had fallen and held it up, then considered the shield, which she had brought, and laid next to him when she'd rushed to help. Luckily, his right arm had taken no damage, but his left shoulder was still in agony.

"I won't be able to hold the shield," he said, as this realisation struck him.

"You'll be fine," said the princess, and picked it up herself. "You won't need it. Just get underneath that thing."

"Underneath," James repeated. "And you're sure?"

"I'd bet my life on it," she promised.

He barely knew her, and barely knew if he could trust her, but he believed her.

He had no other choice.

Algernon, that genius animal, had succeeded in drawing the dragon to a comfortable distance away, and it was going out of its mind trying to catch him, so much so that it had stopped trying to seize the cat in its jaws and resorted to trying to roast him alive. Jets of white-hot flame were pouring from its mouth at intervals, leaving the ground beneath it scorched and smoking, and though Algernon was faster than his large frame would lead a man to believe, it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

With his mind clear now, James ran towards the dragon's retreating back with his sword in hand, his heart racing wildly in his chest. He had to dive to his knees and roll forward to avoid being lashed by its spiked tail, which was whipping back and forth, sending everything it touched hurtling into the air, then weave around one giant foot, twice as large as the thickest tree-trunk and crushing the skull of a fallen knight into dust, then finally slide beneath the lowest point of its hindquarters.

He was lying beneath a dragon. An actual, fire-breathing dragon. One day ago, he'd thought he'd never see one in the flesh.

James turned on his stomach and crawled, fast, to avoid being crushed, the sword clutched in his hand and scraping against the ground, until he reached the point where the dragon's body began to curve upwards.

He stood up, and Algernon saw him immediately, and stopped right in his tracks.

For a moment, neither of them moved, but the beast they'd wordlessly agreed to fight cared not for such delicate moments, and roared, its great throat rumbling with the promise of fresh flame, and James had to act immediately, or the cat - _his_ cat - would be burned to death before his eyes.

So he turned on his heel, raised the sword above his head and sent it flying, straight and true, right into the dragon's chest.

It sliced through its hide like a knife through butter.

The dragon reared up on its legs and let out a shrill, prolonged scream - a nightmarish sound that could have shattered glass - then swooped down as if to crush its prey, and even though every nerve in James's body told him to run, he leapt, both hands closing round the hilt of his sword, then pulled, as hard as he possibly could.

Blood spurted out of the open wound, more than he'd ever seen from a person, showering him in scarlet, pooling on the ground like so many gallons of spilled wine. The braying beast teetered unsteadily towards him, its head swinging wildly from side to side, screeching in terror, and it was going to fall, and crush him soundly.

He dived sideways, landing on his bad shoulder, and rolled away, narrowly avoiding its stamping foot, scrambled to his feet and ran backwards, until he could taste clean air, until he was clear of its swaying shadow.

The dragon fell, slower than his father had, its neck and head forming a graceful arc through the swirling fog, then hit the ground with a deafening crash that sent a hundred cracks running through the flagstone, one great, blazing burst of smoke escaping its nostrils when it landed.

Then it was still, its forked tongue lolling useless from its open mouth, its blind eye bloody, its other as white and blank as milk.

Dead.

He had killed it.

He'd killed a bloody _dragon._

Wait until he told Sirius, he thought. And Remus. And Peter... but Peter was dead. Like his father. Dad was dead, too.

The whole world had fallen deadly silent, with nothing but the sound of James's pounding heart to fill the empty space the dragon had left behind, and he hadn't noticed it before, but his whole body was slick with sweat.

Algernon nudged against his leg, alerting him to reality, snapping him back to the present, and streaked off in the direction of the princess, who was standing on the other side of the dragon's head, staring at James as if she had just seen a ghost.

That was it. Princess. Tower. Snape. She was pretty, but he couldn't kiss her again. Snape wouldn't like it. His mother needed him.

After a deep, shuddering breath, and a slow rotation of his battered shoulder, he returned his now blood-stained sword to his back, wiped a hand across his face, and followed the path that Algernon had cut through the smouldering wreckage to where she stood, mute and awestruck. When he came to a halt in front of her, he fixed her with a look that invited no argument.

"We're going to Gryffindor," he said firmly.

She nodded, her eyes wide and boring into his, mouth slightly open, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "Okay."

He took her hand in his and led her quickly away.

* * *

He held onto her hand for at least a mile.

It wasn't possible to stop and take the breather that she so keenly felt she needed, not while they crossed a bleak expanse of stark, brown earth, while a suffocating fog still swirled around them and adrenaline pumped so hot through her veins, and his, she imagined. She couldn't believe what she had just seen. Dragons were so rare that they were almost extinct, residing solely in The Teeth, the mountain range that towered above the west coast of Ravenclaw, and the one she'd just seen bore no resemblance to the pictures she had studied in books about native breeds. It must have been brought from another land, no doubt enchanted by the warlocks in Petunia's employ to stand sentinel over her imprisoned little sister, or created by magical means.

Either way, James had killed it.

They didn't stop walking, with Algernon patrolling alongside them, until they could no longer see the castle over their shoulders, and James had led her into the forest, beyond the reaches of the fog. Here, the air was crisp, and the scenery a brilliant green, with merry daisies dotted in the grass and trees stretching tall towards a reddening sky.

He marched her to edge of a bubbling river and released her hand, then immediately threw his sword at his feet, followed shortly by the scabbard. His body appeared to be buzzing, as if he had a mass of pent-up energy, or anger, and had no idea how to release it.

"I feel disgusting," he said, apparently to himself, and stepped away from her. He pulled his tunic over his head, with sharp gasp of pain as he lifted his arm, and slung it over his shoulder, which was already starting to bruise. "That sodding dragon - I'm covered in blood."

"Close proximity to fire will do that, I suppose," said Lily, taken aback by the fact that he had stripped off his shirt in front of her, and that she very much liked what lay underneath.

"Whoever had you locked up - didn't you say it was your sister?"

She nodded, keeping her lips pressed together and her eyes trained resolutely on his face.

"Why?" he said, frowning at her. "Every time I've met her, she's been - wait, you have magic, don't you?"

Lily looked down at her feet, and stretched her fingers toward the ground, the way she'd done when she was very little, and could make the buds of flowers burst into colour. Nothing happened.

"I did, once," she said. "But the curse suppressed it."

"But that makes you the rightful queen, right?"

"According to our laws, which Petunia can't change without—"

"—Flitwick's approval."

"Which she'd never get," said Lily dryly. Ravenclaw had been desperate to return magic to its people since it died out, a mission that her parents, and Filius Flitwick, of the Council of Four, had been passionate about, once her powers had been discovered. "She was supposed to rule until I came of age, but I guess she liked the throne too much, so here we are now. Weren't you going to bathe, or is this some kind of seduction technique?"

He looked thrown by the sudden change of topic, his eyes dropping to his own body. "Oh."

"If it _is_ an attempt at seduction, you're not very adept—"

"It's not," he said. "I need to wash. Myself. Alone. No seduction involved."

"That's a wondrous relief, I must say."

He hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of his trousers, then stopped and looked up at her, seeming rather embarrassed. "Can you, um, look away or go somewhere else, please?"

Before she had been kidnapped, Lily's interactions with men had been quite limited. There had been father, with his kindly eyes and his bushy red beard, and sweet old Flitwick, who she had surpassed in height by the time she turned seven, and a multitude of guards she knew by name, many of whom treated her quite kindly, but for the most part, men had been about as important to her as curtains and carpets, quite simply there, and not worth her time, until she had been forced to entertain a parade of foppish, pretentious gits who strolled into her tower with great notions of romance and chivalry. Her teens had been sacrificed to solitude, and she'd never been given the chance to form an interest in a member of the opposite sex.

Then there was this one, black-haired and vaguely resentful, whose hand felt as if it had been shaped just to hold hers, who had killed a dragon before her very eyes, whose skin was dark and damp and gleamed in the early evening sun, and there she was, entranced by his half-naked body, even though she had willed herself to dislike him most thoroughly.

"Please don't embarrass yourself by assuming I've got any interest in what lurks beneath your clothes," she flippantly lied, with an arched eyebrow for good measure. "What's the matter, anyway? Haven't you ever been nude in front of a girl before?"

"Not that it's any of your business," said James coldly. "But no, I haven't, and I'd rather keep it that way for now."

"You haven't?" she said, surprised. "Really?"

"Really."

"Even though you look like that?"

He eyed her suspiciously. "Look like what?"

"It doesn't matter, this merely confirms my theory that there's something terribly wrong with you beneath the surface."

"Princess—"

"It's Lily."

"—I need to wash the smell of dead dragon off of me," he said tightly, though he looked as if he would love nothing more than to strangle her. "Could you please give me some privacy so I can take my clothes off without feeling like a deviant?"

"You mean, more of a deviant than before?"

"For the love of Merlin—"

"Aren't you afraid that I'll run away if you leave me alone?" she said, and cocked her head sideways, her eyes sliding over his bare chest in a way that she hoped did not betray the strange and unfamiliar stirrings she was feeling.

"If you run away," he said. "I'll catch you."

"Even though you'll be naked?"

"I'll still be faster than you."

"I'd be inclined to agree, but haven't you just spent a fortnight walking to get here? I imagine you must be tired by now."

"Oh, I'm exhausted, but I'm not the one wearing a heavy dress."

"You seem think an awful lot of yourself."

"I _did_ just break your curse," he reminded her. "And I slayed a dragon, dunno if you noticed—"

"Oh, _slayed_ a dragon!" she repeated, derision dripping from her voice. "You could have just used the word 'killed,' but no, you have to be particularly ostentatious in your self-praise. What exactly do you want, a round of applause?"

"No," he said loudly, with a scowl. "But would it kill you to be nice to me for five minutes? I'm starting to wish I'd left you in that castle, honestly."

"Maybe you should have."

"Maybe I should have," he agreed, and stormed off, kicking at a pile of pebbles as he went, several of which landed in the water with a series of plops. "I'm going downriver, stay here."

He had no right to tell her what to do and she should have reminded him, but the energy required to follow him and start another argument flew from her bones, so she sat down by the water's edge and kicked off her slippers. They were pretty, the colour of pearls, made to be elegant and dainty, and completely impractical in every other sense. She wanted to throw them into the water and climb to her feet and run, free as a bird and silent as a ghost, through the dark woods, until she found somewhere safe, and warm, and someone who cared about _her,_ Lily, not about an ancient magic they were trying to safeguard, or about some promise they'd made to a conquering king who needed a princess to marry.

But her mother and father were dead, and her sister saw her as a threat, and all the friends she'd known had surely forgotten her.

She was free, but alone still, and that should have made her feel something - sadness, or anger, or fear - but a cold, empty mass had settled in her gut, pushing everything else out.

Lily slipped her feet into the water.

The sun was preparing to set, dipping lower in a vivid orange sky that reflected in the river, shining and brilliant, and she heard a splash from far away - James had probably jumped in to wash further down - but otherwise, all was fairly silent. A light breeze rustled through the leaves, and her hair, and the water was cold, lapping against her ankles. The grass was slightly damp beneath her fingers. Things she hadn't felt in years.

Once upon a time, she had felt so connected to all of this. She could have made the leaves still in the wind, or shifted the earth beneath her, but as she held one hand out in front of her, fingers bent towards the water, and tried to muster a pull she hadn't felt in far too long, nothing happened at all. The curse had suppressed her powers, that she'd always known, but she'd always thought she'd feel them again - that strong, comforting warmth in her core - once she got out. There was nothing there. Not one hint of who she'd been before.

A movement near her elbow made her jump, but it was simply Algernon, who crawled into her lap and looked up at her with eyes as green as her own. She ran her fingers through his warm fur, and his plump little body vibrated happily at her touch.

He was real, and living, and close to her. And that was something.

"We're friends now, aren't we?" she said, and hugged him close to her chest.

He responded with a contented purr, a shaft of light cutting through the void the day had left inside her.

"Yeah," she whispered. "We're friends. I need some of those."

She heard another splash in the distance. James again. They'd been at each other's throats all day, which all seemed rather pointless, in the light of what he'd done for her.

He was meant to be the love of her life, but it felt surreal, as if she was watching it happen to somebody else, or reading about a character in a novel. And he was immensely puzzling, insecure and arrogant all at once, as tightly-wound as if he was carrying some great pain, entirely vexing, yet somehow more likeable than she wanted him to be. And handsome. Far too handsome.

 _"He_ certainly makes me feel something," she quietly confessed, while Algernon nuzzled his head against her shoulder. "Irritation, mostly, but he's alright, I think. Do you trust him?"

Algernon simply purred again, though Lily got the sense that he'd given her an answer.

She fell silent, then, and felt grateful to the world for welcoming her back with so much beauty. It could have been cold, and raining, and a sad, gloomy grey, but it had given her a sunset instead.

That felt, almost, like something hopeful.

Eventually, James came back, dressed in the clothes he'd been wearing earlier. He looked as if he'd climbed out of the water and let himself dry off, for his hair was still wet, and there were damp patches on his thin, blood-stained tunic.

"Is the smell of dead dragon gone?" she said.

"For the most part," he replied, and sat down next to her. He seemed calmer than he had been before. "Thanks for not running away."

"Being chased through the forest by a naked man didn't sound all that appealing," she admitted, and allowed Algernon to slip from her arms. He settled on the grass between them, and James began to scratch his head. "Do you need something to dry your hair? I packed cloths—"

"Nah, it's alright."

"You should probably wash your clothes, too."

"I would, but I don't have any others."

"Where's the nearest village?"

"About fifteen miles from here, we should reach it tomorrow."

"Get hold of some fabric and I can make you something, if you want," she offered. "And use the clothes you have now for a pattern."

He looked at her with raised brows. "You can do that?"

"One's range of pastimes are rather limited, when one is locked away for a decade."

His mouth opened, and closed again, and he gave her a look that seemed like contrition, but he couldn't understand and she never would have asked him to, so they both turned their gazes to the river, and sat in a comfortable sort of silence while the day bid its goodbyes to the world.

"I thought I'd die in there, you know," she said, after a while, when the sun had sank beyond the horizon and the sky was a dusky violet.

"You did?"

Lily nodded. "I thought I'd turn to bones, and dust, and become nothing but a story people told their children."

"We'll all be stories, one day," said James.

She wondered if she'd ever find the energy to cry, but it felt like such a feat right now, when the air was so still, and twilight had fallen upon their heads with the soft docility of a fairy's footprint. "I never wanted to be the victim in mine."

"You're not a victim."

"Only thanks to you," she said, and turned her head to look at him. "You broke the curse."

"I pulled you through a door," he said blandly. "And broke the curse, yeah, which I think means I'm incredibly brave and worthy—"

She laughed.

"—but it's not your fault that it was built that way, and you'll figure out the rest on your own," he finished. "Also, if it helps, you've got a cracking right hook."

Lily smiled at him, and he smiled back.

He was being nice, even though he didn't like her, but that was her fault. She'd been unfair to him.

"I know this will sound strange," she said quietly. "Considering how you found me, and all that impressive dragon-slaying you just did, but I'm really tired."

"We can sleep," he offered immediately. "It's fine, getting dark anyway."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, but not here, the ground's too damp." He climbed to his feet, brushed nonexistent dirt from his grubby trousers, and held out his hand.

She took it, and allowed him to haul her up. "Also, we'd probably roll right into the river."

"Drowning wouldn't be the ideal way to celebrate your first day of freedom."

"No, it wouldn't," she agreed, and dropped his hand. "I'll be nicer to you tomorrow, James."

The sound of his name seemed to stir something soft in his expression. "You promise?"

Lily drew an X upon her chest with her finger. "Cross my heart."

"In that case, I promise not to wake you up by kissing you."

"Was that in danger of happening?"

"I always imagined my first kiss would be with a girl who actually _wanted_ to kiss me," he said, with a self-effacing grin that threw, into sharp relief, the reality of just how lovely a face he had. "So no, not really."

"That was your first kiss?"

He nodded. "Yours too, right?"

"For obvious reasons."

"Then I've been an absolute cad, and we'll both have to be better tomorrow," he said, and held out his hand once more, this time for her to shake in agreement. "Deal?"

He was supposed to be the love of her life, and that still felt as if it couldn't be true, but it wasn't entirely awful.

"Yes," she agreed, and shook on it. "Deal."


	5. Five

**Chapter Five**

Though she had reposed upon a luxurious feather bed in her solitary tower, the princess didn't seem to mind roughing it in the woods, and fell asleep upon a mound of heather without a single word of complaint.

Granted, she did have several pillows and a thick wool blanket to see her through the night, but it was decent of her to be so unconcerned, all the same. James had been surrounded by wealth for all of his life, and knew many people of lesser importance who would have balked at the prospect of such a bed.

He might even have been one of them, during his younger, stupider years.

It didn't matter now, either way. He hadn't slept in a proper bed in months. The shack he shared with his ailing mother had only one, and she was in constant need of it, so he'd become quite used to curling up on dirty floors and muddy, bug-infested grass. Normally, it didn't bother him, but it wasn't fun to watch Algernon and the princess huddle together like two caterpillars in a snug cocoon, drifting away on a sea of dreams, while he slumped beneath a tree and groaned each time a sharp, stabbing pain—a trinket from his brush with death—coursed through his shoulder and along his chest.

The princess had confessed that she feared she'd die forgotten, and he hadn't understood it in that moment, but with his father in the ground and his mother set to join him, while the best and only real friends he'd ever had were locked away in chains, the idea had put down roots as he mulled it over.

To die alone was a terrifying thought, but _living_ alone—as he was now, and as she had done—was infinitely worse.

He'd had an action-packed day, and had felt pretty good about himself for the first time in weeks, for whatever else the day had wrought, he'd killed a dragon, but his mood sank with the sun and the night was colder than usual. He should have been so tired that he fell asleep at once, but he was as alert as an owl, with nothing to do but listen to the crickets chirp, build a fire to warm himself and watch the princess sleep. She had dropped off almost instantly, apparently exhausted by all she had endured.

When she slept— _really_ slept, not victim to some fairy's devious trick—she frowned, and frowned decidedly, with buttoned eyelids, a tiny crease between her brows and the corners of her mouth tucked tightly in, as if she was terribly cross with someone in her dream. It presented less of a fantasy than the elegant state in which he'd found her, but was all the more endearing for that.

James didn't recall drifting off, just the glow of the firelight on her pale, unhappy face, but the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to a brilliant sun, with a warm, heavy weight on his chest and a white-hot pain in his shoulder. Her blanket had found its way onto his body while he slept, as had Algernon, he realised, when the weight on his chest flicked its tail into his face.

"Move for a second," he told the cat, and turned on his side. In a rare show of obedience, Algernon promptly complied, and stood sentinel over James while he groped around for his glasses. When he found them, lying in the grass several inches from his head, and slid them up his nose, he saw that the princess had upped and left, leaving naught but a flattened patch of heather in her wake.

"Shit!" he cried, and scrambled to his feet at once, narrowly avoiding treading in the last embers of the fire, while Algernon yowled and darted to a nearby stump like a streak of orange lightning. "That devious little—"

Not only was the princess gone, she had taken his satchel, which left James with nothing but a cat, a sword, and an admittedly comfortable blanket to take back home to Snape.

"Where did she go?!" he said to the cat.

Algernon looked at him as if he would rather see James dead than help him in any way.

"Seriously? You faced off against a dragon for me yesterday!" he reminded him. "But today you're past caring?"

The cat turned his back on him.

"Stupid bleeding cat," he accused—not that Algernon cared or listened—and stomped off in the direction of the river. He had no idea how he was supposed to mount a one-man search for a wayward princess in an enormous forest, especially when she might have run off hours ago, but whichever direction she'd taken off in, she'd be stupid if she hadn't stopped to get some water first. "Follows me around for days, but the second he meets _her—"_

"What about me?"

James whirled around immediately at the sound of her voice. The princess had appeared through a thicket of trees, picking her way through a clump of stinging nettles with her skirt lifted slightly to keep from snagging. She looked as if she had washed her hair—her braid was a messy, thrown-together affair—but her eyes were an alarming, bloodshot red, and the tip of her nose was raw and rosy enough to match.

"You're here," he said.

"Where else would I be?"

"I thought that you—" he began, but found that her mental state was more immediately concerning to him than her prior whereabouts. She had very clearly been crying, and for whatever reason, that wasn't sitting right with him. "Has something upset you?"

"Oh," she replied, and blinked, and gave a big sniff. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly sure."

"Because sometimes people _say_ that they feel fine, but really—"

"I had no idea where I was when I woke up this morning," she said, effectively cutting him off, and came to a neat halt directly in front of him. "I thought I was dreaming at first, you know? Because I'd dreamed about getting out before, but then I remembered everything, and you were there asleep—shivering, by the way—so I gave you my blanket and went to the river and I must have cried for _hours—"_

"What?!"

"—but now I feel fantastic," she finished, and smiled at him, as brightly as one could with tearstained cheeks. "Crying can be so satisfying, you know? Why were you in such a panic just now?"

"I don't—I thought you might have run off," he admitted, feeling somewhat displaced. She seemed to have accomplished greater emotional feats in one morning than he was capable of handling over the course of several months.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because, yesterday, you kept insisting that you wanted to go to Ravenclaw."

"I did, until a bloody great dragon materialised in the courtyard," she said, and swung the satchel from her shoulder to hold out to him. "There isn't the slightest chance that Petunia doesn't have spies in the area who noticed, which means she'll be sending people to kill my rescuer and bring me straight back to the tower. Going to Ravenclaw would be immensely dangerous for you."

"And not for you?"

"Petunia can't have me killed," she said. "I mean, I rather hope she'd never actually _want_ to stoop that low, but it's not an option, anyway."

"Why not?"

"Are you going to take this?" The princess shook the bag by the strap, and James took it from her. "I'd feel more confident if I had my powers, but they don't seem to work for more than a few seconds, which really isn't good enough. What use can I be if I can barely levitate pebbles?"

"I'm quite capable of defending myself, you know."

"I know," she said, with a pitying smile, and patted his cheek. "All the same, you seem to be _most_ adept at looking pretty, so I'd rather not see that lovely face mangled."

"What are you—"

"Are you hungry?" she said, looking past him, towards the dying remains of the fire he'd built. "I'm starving, actually, I don't think I've eaten since that stew. We should eat some of the fruit I packed."

She slid past him and returned to her makeshift heather bed, where she plopped down on her bottom and held out her arms to Algernon. The cat flung himself into her embrace as if they'd been parted for several years.

"Is this what you're like when you're in a good mood?" said James, following her back to their camp.

"Like what?"

"A flirt?"

"I'm a flirt?" She paused in tickling Algernon's chin to look up at him with big, bright, plainly delighted eyes. "I've never had a chance to find out before! How fascinating! Am I good at flirting?"

"Most flirting isn't laced with mild derision," he informed her. "Why are you flirting with _me,_ anyway?"

"You're the only person here."

"Algernon's here."

"Algernon is a cat," she said flatly. "At the minute, I'm more concerned with you."

He sat down on the blanket and opened the satchel, rather than look at her, wincing when a twinge of pain shot through his shoulder. Yesterday, she'd packed apples, plums and figs, which sounded delicious right at that moment. James hadn't eaten fruit since before Snape had taken the capital—he'd always complained when his mother forced him to conform to her idea of a healthy diet—but now that those things were off-limits to him, his mouth could have watered at the thought. "Why?"

"Because," she said. "Out of twenty-eight men who've come to my tower in the past ten years, you're the only one who could break the curse, you killed a dragon with your bare hands and you seem as if you might be intelligent, which makes you just about the most interesting person I've ever met in my life—"

The way in which his insides responded, with painful, frantic leaps and volleys, to the tiniest crumbs of encouragement from her lips, was utterly pathetic and extremely worrisome. "Ah."

"—so pardon me if I'm curious."

"Curious about what?"

"I don't know. Everything?" She shrugged. "I know next to nothing about you, except that you're the prince of Gryffindor."

"I'm not the prince of Gryffindor."

"Sorry, I forgot my semantics, you're the _former_ prince of Gryffindor."

"Just because I can read—"

"No, actually, it's because you understand the succession laws of a kingdom that's not yours," she interrupted. "Or perhaps it's because you mentioned that you've met my sister on more than one occasion. That means you're _someone_ important, even if you're not the prince, which you absolutely are. I mean, you look an awful lot like your mother, for one thing—"

"How do you know what my mother—"

"I should have tried to get you to admit it while you were dizzy yesterday, but you were too busy telling me how pretty you think I am."

A sudden warmth crawled up his neck. "I don't think you're pretty."

"Yes, you do."

"Where did you get an idea like that?"

"From you, when you _told_ me."

"When was that?"

"Yesterday, when I was trying to stop that pillar from crushing you to death—"

"You're going to believe something I said when I was knocked half-unconscious?"

"Yes, actually," she said. "I can't imagine anyone who finds himself wrestling with the jaws of death—and nursing a head injury—feels any pressing need to make up pointless lies."

He wanted to grab the blanket, pull it over his head and stew for a while in his own discomfort, but that would give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right, about that and everything else, so he rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses to fully demonstrate how truly wearisome she was.

"You talk too much, you know," he told her.

"You don't talk enough," she retorted. "Your royal highness."

"I'm not—"

"—a good liar? I completely agree," she said, and smiled sweetly. "Can I have an apple, please?"

"If you behave yourself."

For once, she didn't have an instant rebuttal at the ready, and gaped at him in abject surprise for a few golden seconds of silence.

"If I be—" she began, and shook her head slightly. "Did I just _hear_ you correctly?"

He shrugged, pulling a shiny red apple from his satchel, and took a generous, crunchy bite. It was crisp and juicy, and a heavenly alternative to the strips of rock-hard beef upon which he'd been chewing for close to a fortnight, but not nearly as satisfying as the look upon her face, which tried very hard to be disapproving, and failed, miserably, on account of a smile that she couldn't keep at bay.

The upper hand at last. It felt good, and entirely foreign to him.

"You're a brave one," she said. "Talking to a princess like that."

He hastily swallowed the mouthful he was chewing and pointed to his own chest. "I'm a curse-breaking dragon-killing genius, or had you forgotten?"

"I said you _might_ be intelligent."

"I'm saying you weren't wrong."

"And you had my help with the dragon."

"That's right, I did," he admitted. "Next time we're attacked, you step up and take the lead, yeah?"

"Do you want another bloody nose?"

"Do you want an apple?"

"You can't use food to hold my behaviour to ransom."

"I can do whatever I want," he countered. "I'm a prince, according to you, remember?"

The princess rose daintily to her feet, allowing Algernon to spring to the ground and perch proudly beside her.

"James," she said. "As much as I enjoy these scintillating talks, I'm really rather hungry, so kindly furnish me with an apple, else I will not hesitate to knock you right into the great beyond."

She was just like him, he thought, all pomp and circumstance, but completely unable to keep the reality of her feelings off her face. She _liked_ the way he was talking to her—against her will, most likely—but there it was. Perhaps she'd never been told what to do before she'd been taken away and detained. Perhaps, just like him, being pandered to by underlings and treated like the royalty she was had given her a perverse appreciation for anyone who was willing to put her in her place.

He took another apple from the bag and tossed it to her; she caught it deftly in one hand.

"And to think," she said airily, and turned, and strolled away towards the river. "I could have married you."

"You're welcome!" he called after her retreating back, but she didn't spare him a second glance, merely hummed a tune he'd never heard before, and disappeared between two chalk-white birches.

With the primary object of his affections gone, Algernon meandered over to James and lay down by his side. Two large, expectant green eyes—he was looking for a petting—were turned upon his face.

"Oh, so now that Princess Perfect has gone wandering, you want my attention," he said derisively.

The cat's expression didn't falter. He didn't care about the silent war that James and the princess were fighting for his favour.

"Bloody hell, you're both annoying," he said, but he ruffled the cat's fur, all the same. "You really like her, don't you?"

Algernon flicked his tail in response.

"Yeah," James agreed, staring at the space that she had just vacated. "I think I like her, too."

* * *

The queen of Ravenclaw was to have an heir.

 _Finally._

It seemed as if she and Vernon had been trying for an eternity; endless, painful years of waiting and longing, of fooling themselves into believing that this was their time, only to be struck by a crushing disappointment, of a desire too great to fully control and a feeling like she'd never be whole until she held her child in her arms.

Rumours had spread—as they always did at court—that it was Vernon's fault, when the royal physician suggested that his virility may have been low, but he had blamed Petunia in turn. The king consort came from a long line of large families, and siring heirs had never been a problem for his ancestors. He must have been right all along, she mused, gazing at the winter woods from her balcony. Vernon was out there, somewhere, trekking through the trees, hunting a stag which had long eluded him, and the physician had been and left before he was due to start back. He would be so pleased when she gave him the news.

Vernon longed for a son and made no secret of it, but Petunia had always hoped to have a girl. A sweet little princess with her mother's blonde hair and her grandmother's emerald eyes. Petunia had gotten her father's eyes, a light, lacklustre grey, but perhaps her daughter would look the way she had been supposed to.

An unbidden, biting chill swirled around her shoulders.

Summers in Ravenclaw were never hot, and one could never feel removed from winter with a tide so wild and violent churning strong beneath the snow-white cliffs, or the ice caps that lurked in the ocean, too far away to be discernible to the eye, but there all the same, spelling peril for incoming ships that opted not to err on the side of caution. A sudden chill was to be expected, though no less unpleasant for its familiarity.

She returned to her chamber seeking warmth, and a robe, and a glass of sweet red wine—just one small glass per day, the physician advised—with which she could quietly celebrate her luck, but had not yet taken a sip when her handmaid came, carrying in her slender hands a letter that had flown in on the talons of an owl.

Petunia knew the hand quite well, though it was rare that she had to receive a message from the man. _Urgent news,_ it read.

The cold seemed to have followed her inside.

When her handmaid left, scurrying away to attend to some other banal task—it didn't matter what, for nothing seemed to matter at this minute—Petunia was left frozen, a woman made of ice in a cavernous bedchamber, staring with unfocused eyes at a vast nothingness that opened up before her, one hand clutching the scroll, the other holding her glass so lightly that it may have slipped from her fingers with the slightest encouragement. The tiny bud of life within her womb was forgotten for a moment, its every birthright threatened by the contents of her letter.

It couldn't be real. It _couldn't._ She's been so thoroughly assured by the warlocks. She had selected the decoys herself, had the kingdom fooled, had _herself_ fooled, sometimes, when she passed her sister's empty room and remembered what her reign had cost her.

The last posturing lord had been murdered by an ogre in her employ. No other should have been there. It could not be real, but it was, it seemed. The tower had been checked, its contents found to be ransacked, and her only sister was nowhere to be found.

Minutes passed by, one after the other, but no one came rushing to her chamber to assure her that there'd been some sort of mistake, and fear was her only companion, while the tiny, precious life that grew inside her body lay sleeping, and everything was silent, and deadly, and still.

With a sudden, violent, uncharacteristic rage, she flung her wine glass at the wall.

* * *

"Can we stop for a minute?"

"No."

"Please?"

"If we keep walking, we'll reach the nearest village in time to buy some proper food," said James, or whoever he actually was, without turning to spare her a glance. "That's why you brought all that rubbish with you, right? To trade?"

"I didn't bring _rubbish—"_

"Rubbish," he repeated. "That bookcase of yours and everything in it would have made better use as firewood."

"We're surrounded by trees, or didn't you notice?"

 _"Now_ we are," he agreed, and knocked aside a low-hanging branch. "Just wait until we reach Gryffindor."

While James had been moaning and groaning and rotating his battered shoulder that morning, the afternoon—or the fruit he'd eaten, or the brief victory he'd snatched when he'd told her off earlier—seemed to have infused him with a new lease of life. He was practically sprightly, leaping over fallen trees and skipping across brooks like he'd been doing it all his life. Lily had been walking behind him, staring at the back of his head, for such a long time that she could have identified him by the nape of his neck alone.

It was a very nice neck, as necks went, not that Lily was a connoisseur of such anatomy.

She had woken up at dawn to the sight of him curled in a ball on the ground, shivering with cold while the early morning dew settled on the grass, and found herself filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, or affection, or some hybrid of the two. He'd seemed so vulnerable, and so soft, while he slept, and she'd found herself watching his face for far too long, studying his hairline and the hollow of his cheeks, wondering—for a now shattered curse seemed determined that it must be so—what events might conspire to see her waking up next to him each morning, bursting with love and suffused with joy at the very sight of him. If she could push against the will of fate, or if she didn't have a chance at all.

She hadn't had a minute to get to know his heart, or his head, but she very much liked the parts of him that she could see, which was a worrying start to whatever relationship they'd be forced to forge on the road.

That had been morning, and Lily feelings—about him, about the day, about her situation in general—had chopped and changed about a dozen times since then, and at that moment she could have thumped him. What James seemed to have forgotten—lucky for him that he had that luxury—was that his travelling companion had a heavy silk dress to contend with, not to mention her tight, pinching slippers, which had been fashioned for style and not much else. An excruciating pain was throbbing in her feet, which were blistering hard and starting to swell.

She hated him, for making her do this.

Or she didn't, really, but she wasn't best pleased with him.

She didn't _want_ to need to stop.

Lily wanted to keep going, so that she could prove to him that she wasn't a weakling who needed to be treated with great delicacy—she had refused his offer of help across a particularly challenging downward slope for that exact reason—but the pain was nigh impossible to bear, and she wasn't used to covering such distance, as he evidently was. She had been locked up for a decade with no real exercise, and while she'd used what she could to train herself for a possible escape, there was no substitute for real-world experience. She had begun to tire quite some time ago.

When she found herself thinking that being stretched on a rack was a preferable alternative to taking another step, she stopped walking and leaned against a tree. Algernon immediately halted and came to stand beside her.

"I'm done," she announced.

James turned around at once, annoyance etched all over his face. "You can't be done."

"I can, and I will, and I am."

"It's really not that far to the village."

 _"It's really not that far to the village,"_ she imitated, in a sing-song voice. "I don't give a donkey's backside about the village."

James looked from her to Algernon, then back again, and bit the inside of his cheek as if he was holding back a tirade.

Let him try to force her, she thought. She'd let him have his little win earlier, because he'd surprised her, and because it had given her a curious thrill when he told her off, but she could have eaten him for breakfast if she wanted. Words had been her greatest companion for far too long, and she knew exactly how to use them to greatest effect.

"If we don't start off at a good pace," he began, sounding as if he was putting a great deal of effort into being patient. "It'll take us a month to get back to Gryffindor."

"I don't care if it takes a month."

"I do," he pushed on. "I need to get back there as quickly as possible. Snape's expecting you in two weeks."

"I'll tell him I delayed us."

"He won't believe that."

"He will if I tell him."

"He won't, he's not the kind of per—" He began, then he sighed. "Look, princess, with all due respect—"

"My name is _Lily."_

"—do you have any idea how much time we lost yesterd—"

"No, I wouldn't have any grasp on the concept of lost time," she dryly retorted, finding amidst her weariness that her temper had the strength to flare. "I've only spent the last ten years locked up alone, with no friends, and no family, and nobody to talk to but one bloody fairy—"

"I wasn't trying to—"

"—who dressed me up like a doll because apparently, looking good for _you_ is more important than anything else I could be doing, and not even a pair of _shoes_ that don't feel like torture when I take so much as a step, and now you want to tell me I'm _wasting time_ because I need a few minutes of rest?"

She had successfully shamed him into silence, as she knew she would have, but took no satisfaction from the look on his face. She was so tired, and in so much pain, and her sister was likely arranging her recapture at that very moment, which meant that there were no safe spots to hide.

Lily had yearned to be free for ten long years, but freedom had felt unattainable; a fanciful pipe dream that would never bear fruit, like a peasant wishing for extraordinary wealth, and now that she was out, she found herself careening from one extreme to another, joyful one minute, seized by fear and missing her tower the next. The only plan she'd ever had was to sneak back to Ravenclaw and take her sister by surprise, but that was gone, replaced by a moody, begrudging, taciturn idiot—her supposed great love—who was taking her off to marry another and refused to answer any of her questions, yet she was expected to trust him with her life.

Feeling, suddenly, as if she wanted to cry again, she sat down heavily beneath the tree and pulled off one of her shoes. A deep, inch-long gash had appeared at the back of her foot where it had cut into the flesh; both it and the slipper were soaked in blood.

James's expression changed, immediately, to one of apparent concern. "You're bleeding."

"No, really?" she replied, her voice dripping with derision. "I thought this was raspberry cordial."

"I didn't—I'm so sorry," he said, and doubled back to join her at the tree, lowering himself to his knees beside her. To his credit, he seemed to be genuinely distressed by your predicament. "I thought that you were tired, honestly, I had no idea that you were in pain—"

"I shouldn't have to be in pain for you to stop."

"I know." He ran a hand through his hair. "I know, it's just—"

"Just what?"

"Nothing," he said, with an expression that demanded further questions, but then he shook his head slightly. "Nothing. I was an arse, and I should have stopped when you asked me to." He held out both hands like he was preparing to catch something. "Can I take a look at your foot?"

"Why do you want to look at it?"

"Because I've got a real thing for bloody wounds," he said dryly. "I just want to make sure you're alright."

Lily hesitated for a moment, but his sincerity won her over. She shifted slightly in her seat and held out her leg towards him, toes pointed forwards, and winced when he took her ankle gently in his hands and turned her foot sideways to examine it.

"That's a nasty cut," he remarked, frowning at her bloody heel. "Is the other one like this?"

She curled her left foot towards her and pushed off her other shoe with the flat of her hand. Though it was swollen and red, her slipper had not nicked her skin. "No."

"Good, we need to wrap this up, in case it gets infected."

"It won't get infected, I have magic," she informed him, though not without a twinge of worry. Her powers had been suppressed by the enchantments that had been laid upon the tower, but she'd always assumed that they'd come right back if she ever went free, but she was struggling with the smallest, simplest things, like making flower stems bend to her will, or levitating dirt. "People with magic heal—"

"—faster than most, I know," he finished. He set her foot back down on the ground and regarded her with raised eyebrows. "You're talking to a wizard."

"If you're a wizard, where's your wand?"

"Gone," he said simply, and swung the satchel from his shoulder. "You said you packed some cloth, didn't you?"

"I did, in case of—well, in case of something like this," she admitted, and watched him rummage around in the satchel for what he needed. "Doesn't seem like rubbish now, does it?"

"You shouldn't listen to what I say when I'm in a bad mood."

"Shouldn't I?"

"Really, you shouldn't, it's not worth your time."

"It's difficult not to listen, when there's nobody else around," Lily reminded him.

"I know," he agreed, pulling a length of snow white material from his bag. "And I'm sorry, again. Honestly, I'm not normally like this, but I haven't been myself lately." He tore the strip of fabric clean in half, then lifted Lily's foot gently from the ground, carefully avoiding her eye. "My mother is really ill."

"You mentioned."

"The thing is, she's not—she's not as independent as she used to be. She can't walk, so she needs me for a lot of things," he finished, and though his tone was light, and he had busied himself with bandaging her foot, there was no mistaking the darkness that crossed his face. "I didn't want to leave her, but Snape—I mean, I left someone I trust to take care of her, but I'm the one who should be doing it, and Snape didn't give me a choice."

"And you resent coming, because you need to be there for her," Lily put in, nodding. "I understand."

"I resent that he made me leave her, but I don't resent _you."_

"You don't have to say that, it's perfectly fine if you—"

"No, I don't," he insisted, and looked up, catching her gaze at once. "I promise, I don't. You're so clever—brilliant, really—and you saved my hide with that dragon, and it makes me sick to think of you stuck in that place. I should've—I should've come and found you myself, sooner than this, and ignored that stupid rule of your sister's, but—"

"Why do you think you had any obligation to find me?"

"Because I'm a Gryffindor."

"And?"

"It's what we do." He finished wrapping up her foot, tucking the end of the cloth neatly inside her makeshift bandage. "It's what we're supposed to do."

"You don't _have_ to do what you're supposed to do, you know," she pointed out. "I used to think I did, but..."

"Being locked up changes your perspective?"

"Something along those lines," she said, with a small smile. "I may be the rightful heir to the throne, but I'm sure my sister's doing a fine, sensible job of running the kingdom, and I certainly don't feel compelled by any sense of duty after what I've been through."

"But you want to take it back from her, anyway."

"I'm that transparent, am I?"

"It's just the impression I got," he said, mirroring her smile. "I reckon you'd be a brilliant queen, you know."

"You think?"

"You're definitely commanding enough—"

She laughed.

"—and like I said before, clever and brilliant," he finished. "You'll do a much better job than your sister, once you've turned Snape down, which I hope you let me witness, by the way."

"Absolutely, provided I can actually make it to Ravenclaw," she said, rotating her ankle from side to side with a pained expression, for no reason other than to distract both herself and James from her quickly reddening cheeks. He'd made her feel all fluttery somehow. "And I don't lose my foot to a hasty amputation."

"You should be alright—at least, I hope so, I'm good at bandaging wounds, not so good at sawing off limbs," he said, and scrubbed a hand through his coal-black hair. "D'you think you can stand?"

"I'll try," she said, and held out her hand. "Help me up?"

He stood up at once, took her offered hand and pulled her gently to her feet, which hurt terribly, still, but with those vile slippers discarded, the cool, damp grass felt very soothing beneath her toes.

"Better?" he said.

"Much better," she agreed, and smiled at him. "Thank you."

"If you need to stop again, just tell me, and I promise I won't be an arse about it."

"You weren't being an arse, really. I would have been the same, if it had been my mother."

"If my mother knew how I've been acting around you, she'd have my head for my rudeness."

"Understandable," Lily mused aloud. "She _was_ trying to marry us off, way back when."

"Yeah, well," he said, with a small, self-deprecating smile. "She's always had excellent taste."

She knew that she'd been right, that he was the prince, and that his inability to lie convincingly would eventually tell her the truth. A portrait of his mother—a noted beauty and one of the most accomplished witches Gryffindor had ever seen, who had been courted and sparred over by nobles from all four kingdoms until she married the Gryffindor king—hung in the royal gallery in the Palace D'Helene, and he looked just like her, but for the wildness of his hair, which she recognised from the month his father had spent with her family.

Lily could have pointed it out—she'd been looking forward to watching him blurt out some irrefutable evidence—but she found she didn't want to.

She wanted him to kiss her.

Damn her flighty, inconstant heart. She was _sure_ that she couldn't abide him not minutes ago. Moody, begrudging, taciturn idiot. Curse-breaking, dragon-killing genius. Respectful of his mother. Sweet.

It was so very quiet, where she were standing, looking up into his eyes, which were guarded and hazel and studying hers with equal interest. Not even the sound of sparrows chirping could she hear. Perhaps Algernon had scared them all away.

Perhaps the birds had stopped to give them silence.

She didn't know if she reached for him first, if he came to her of his own volition.

It was both of them. They both moved at once—Mary had told her often that it was instinctual, when it was with the right person—and collided halfway, her clasping the front of his shirt with both hands, while he grabbed her hips with a strength that brought a soft, surprised sigh from her lips, a sigh he took for himself when his mouth met hers in a heady, clumsy tangle; her back was slammed against the tree and it hurt but it was _beautiful,_ as volatile and urgent as his lips were soft.

Lily felt like she was being devoured alive, like he was hungry, half-starved, ravenous for every morsel of her.

James was kissing her like he needed her desperately, and she didn't think she'd ever been needed—wanted—like this before. A few of the others had tried to woo her in her tower, presenting her with prettily-worded speeches that felt stiff and rehearsed, and they'd been so easy to rebuff. It had never been like this, like her mind was gone and her body had taken over, drinking in the taste of him, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer to her, clinging to him like she was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and he was the only thing that anchored her to life.

It wasn't just her who felt it. It was him. It was _them._

This was wrong. It was _so_ wrong. She'd only known him for a day, and she shouldn't have let him have her so easily. No. She was stronger than this. Better than this. She wasn't a slave to her own lust, and he was still a total stranger to her.

And fascinating, and infuriating, and brave—really, bloody heroic—and so undeniably handsome, and they were meant to be together, weren't they? Hadn't the curse determined... but Lily didn't want to give in to a destiny she'd had no part in choosing. She wanted to make her own way in the world. She wasn't prepared to surrender her choice to fate, and he'd only rescued her in the first place because of—

—oh, it didn't matter when he could kiss like that.

Was this what freedom meant? A bright blue sky, acres of lush, tall trees, clear, cold water and his lips on hers? She could have lived with that.

Lily would have stayed there all day, she knew, trapped against his body and completely unwilling to go anywhere else, and though her thoughts and feelings had been so unable to find a toehold in the day, in _that_ moment, at least, she was certain that everything Mary told her had been right, that he was it, the one, _her_ one, for nobody else could have kissed her like this, nobody...

"How sweet," came a voice she didn't know, low and cracked and rasping, and James pulled away from her at once. "But I'm afraid I'll have to interrupt."

She hadn't heard them coming at all, yet there they were, at least thirty of them, emerging from the trees, with beady eyes in their ugly little faces, the blades of their weapons glinting in the sun that dappled through the leaves. The pounding in her heart became another thing entirely, bringing sharp, visceral memories to the forefront of her clouded mind—the tower, and her sister, a blood stained rock beneath the waves, and danger up ahead.

They were surrounded.

They were outnumbered.

They might have been about to die.


End file.
